


Skin and Bones

by hotpielookedlikehotpie



Series: Skin and Bones [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Mental Health Issues, Nightmares, Post-Mockingjay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-08 07:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 51,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotpielookedlikehotpie/pseuds/hotpielookedlikehotpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>post-rebellion/pre-epilogue of Mockingjay that explores Peeta and Katniss growing back together. There are a lot of these kinds of katniss/peeta fics, but I wanted to write one that didn't use the canon symbolic items (memory book, pearl, etc) to define their relationship</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i. ashes

In my dreams she comes right up to me, arriving unexpectedly, just like always. Determined look on her face. "They let you wear one thing from your district in the arena. One thing to remind you of home. Will you wear this?"

I looked away from Madge's pleading eyes, her two delicate hands held out in front of her in a ball, hiding whatever was in her hand, and looked around. We were outside in the square, and the entire town was staring at us. Watching, unmoving. I look back at her, her eyebrows furrowed in a way that most people were used to seeing mine. "Will you wear this?" Madge pressed. I looked down at her hands, fitted over something and not showing it to me. I nodded. She smiled. I held out my hands and she opened her hands to lay them on top of mine. There was nothing in her hands though, no pin or anything. Except blood. Blood was pouring onto my hands and it all looked so red. I looked up at Madge in horror and she smiled at me.

"Here, I'll put it on your dress, all right?" Her voice was so light and almost a song. She placed her hands right over my heart and blood seeped down my dress. I stared at her and she stared at me smiling, until the blood started pouring out of her eyes and mouth. I stepped back and looked at my hands, red. I turned myself all around in the square, red. Red. Everywhere.

Everyone was bleeding.

Soon everyone collapsed on the ground in moans from the dead and twitched. I stood there watching and staring at my red hands. Madge's blood was on my hands. All of their blood was. My fault. My fault.

And then Prim appeared in front of me, smiling and untouched. I wanted to hug her but I didn't want to get any of the blood on her and her untucked shirt. I'm about to say something – Little Duck maybe, or just her name, Prim – when she smiles wider and let out an airy "Katniss" as she erupts in flames. She smiled the whole time, didn't fall into a moaning heap of death like the others, and soon enough there was only ash. The only thing that made sound was me, and I yelled gibberish, just wanting to block my view somehow with sound. My sister was a bunch of ash, and it blew into my face.

I woke up screaming, still the taste of ash in my mouth. Running to the bathroom, I threw up. The taste was horrible, the burn painful, but it was better than the taste of ash, the taste of my dead sister, on my tongue.

I wouldn't get sleep again the rest of the night, so I laid my head on my bathroom tile and forced my mind into a catatonic state. The world blurred in front of me, making it so I couldn't attach to any detail or anything. This was the closest thing I could get to sleep usually. Just existing: mind blank, eyes not seeing, no hearing, nothing.

At some point two feet came in my vision brought me back down to my reality. I blinked, not knowing how long I was laying there for. I stared at the shoes, which made me take in the tiled floor of the bathroom, which made me take in the fact that I was laying on my bathroom floor, which made me take in the fact that I still had the taste of bile in my throat, which made me think of ashes and blood. _Not yet, not already. There's feet in front of you, there's someone here. The cameras are on. You can't let them know you're weak, you can't let them know your-_

Oh. I wasn't in the games. I rubbed my eyes and managed to pull my body into a sitting position thanks to the toilet. I looked up, getting dizzy, to see Greasy Sae looking down and tutting.

"Come on, darling. My old bones cannot pick you up and carry you around. Pull yourself back up. I have breakfast waiting for you." She said soothingly, her hand on my arm. I stood up, wobbling a bit, and followed her downstairs where a plate was set with my breakfast. I sat, ate, not tasting anything really. The food might have been hot, but I couldn't really tell. Nothing really registered about any of it. A loaf of bread was in front of my plate.

I reached for a piece before I knew what I was doing. I stared at my hand, going for the bread, and then looked up at Greasy Sae. She was looking at me smiling. "Well, eat up girl. He didn't bake it for nothing." I was thinking more than I allowed myself to think the entire breakfast. My hand clutched a piece of bread, and it was still warm. Still warm, he made it today then. I ate the piece of bread in silence as Greasy Sae cleaned up my things. She made small talk I think. She's used to me not answering so I didn't bother to listen. When she left I ate another piece, and another. _He made the bread, and it was for me. He made it today, it was still warm._ But he wouldn't deliver it to me. He wouldn't see me and wouldn't deal with all the hurt that I've brought to his life.

I took another piece of bread and found my way to the coat closet in the living room just nearby. The stairs were too far, too many. I sat in the closet and closed the door, eating the piece of bread. I was the worst thing that ever happened to him.

I was the worst thing to ever happen to myself too. To my family, to my neighbors. To all of Panem. I stopped eating the bread and laid it in my lap; I didn't deserve it.

Time passed and I sat in the dark. The doctor told me that it'd help to make lists of truths that started out simple and went towards the more difficult things. I decided to listen to the advice. Cleared my throat. "My name is Katniss Everdeen." I said aloud. I forgot what my voice sounded like. There was too much gravel, too much harshness. It fit what I've become. "I am seventeen years old. The war is over. My sister is dead. My mother may as well be. Everyone is dead, everyone is hurt. I am the face of the war. I am the face of everything that was lost. It's all my fault." My voice gave out, and my mind brought in a mantra of _my fault, my fault, my fault_ that pounded through my body like a heartbeat.

I yanked one of the coats that were hanging above my head down and wrapped myself around it. I tried not to think of what corpse the coat belonged to. That's all anyone was now. Corpses in the ground or corpses still walking around and existing. I lived in a town of ash and ghosts. I didn't deserve anything better. I didn't deserve peace or death or hope. _I should be dead_ , I thought to myself, but knew that was a lie. Prim, perfect Prim was dead and she didn't deserve it. But she at least was at peace. _I do not deserve peace,_ I thought to myself as I lowered myself into a laying down position, the jacket over my face. _I deserve every nightmare, ever tear drop, every scar._ Knowing that I deserved it though didn't make it easier. It made it all hurt more. When did I make the transition from a kid just trying to help her family survive to a monster?

I got up and out of the closet in just a couple of minutes before Greasy came back for dinner, along with her granddaughter. I stood in the kitchen with a glass of water when she came in, glaring at the distorted reflection I could see of myself within the glass. I was thankful that she didn't have to find me laying in the closet; Greasy already has enough to deal with by coming here for me, she doesn't need a game of hide-and-seek with a depressed girl. I wanted to be able to pull myself together a little bit, at least for Greasy, to make her life a little easier.

"Out of the kitchen now dear, I have to get dinner started," She told me, lightly pushing my back out of the kitchen and into the living room. Her granddaughter was sitting there, playing with a doll that she brought with her and mumbling. I sat next to her, horrified for a moment that I was expected to entertain the girl. After a couple of minutes though, I realized that she was plenty fine entertaining herself and I sat beside her watching as the smells of dinner hit my nose. Soon enough the three of us were at the table and Greasy Sae fell into a conversation about her day. Her granddaughter hummed to herself as she ate. I ate in silence, sipping the stew in front of me. I suddenly realized that it was silent around me, so I looked up, and saw the two of them looking at me. Greasy Sae cut a piece of bread as she told me, "I said, it tastes just delicious when you dip this bread into the stew. Would you like a piece, Katniss?"

"No," I muttered, going back to eating. She had a piece in her hand, outstretched to my bowl. Her eyebrows cocked, looking at me confused. "No?" I repeated the word again. I ate more stew. "Why don't you want bread, Katniss?"

I paused taking a sip and put my spoon back down. I can't remember the last time I tried to form my thoughts into a coherent sentence, besides me mumbling to myself. _Why don't I want a piece of bread?_ I ask myself. I do want a piece. I want a piece of bread badly. I look at the loaf, and I can only imagine how delicious it'd taste with the stew. This isn't about wanting though, it can't be. My life never has never been and I am not about to fall into wants now, when I least deserved it.

"I can't take the bread," I said my voice cracking from lack of use. I cleared my throat, and went on. "I can't take the bread. Can you tell him that? I understand that he thinks he owes me but-" I stop, catch a jerk in my voice that was about to come. I breathed deep, willing myself to not be overcome by any feelings. _Feelings are for when you're alone Katniss. Feelings are for when you're laying in the dark and are stuck in your head as if it's a cage. Feelings are for when you can burn and drown all at once with them, and all alone._ I looked up at Greasy Sae, making sure my face was completely blank. "There are no debts. There are no dues. Please tell him that." I looked away and stood up and said an "excuse me," as I walked up the stairs. Greasy Sae looked at me as if she was disappointed at me for some reason, and I almost wanted to scoff at her. _Get in line,_ I wanted to tell her. _I let down everyone, I let them all die._

I sat at the wall by the staircase as I heard them clean up. The girl started singing as song, and Greasy Sae would chime in every now and then and help with a verse. And then they were out the door. With them gone, I realized that I started singing along as well. I was startled, forgot I could sing and have my voice carry a tune or beat. I considered stopping, but I couldn't find it in me to stop. I got up slowly, considered for a humored second just throwing myself down the stairs. Instead I made my way to my room. Still singing, I opened my window and let the cold air of the night hit my face. It was soon to be spring, but the air held a chill as if winter was giving all it had to stay. I quieted down and then stopped singing while I stood at the window, looking at the stars and moon. The moon was far away from the land, an immeasurable distance. I folded my arms on the window sill and wondered if the moon ever felt lonely. I was almost feeling at peace, staring at the moon. I almost felt a kinship to it and it's loneliness.

My calm state was destroyed at the moment when I heard a crash echo into the night. I panicked and looked around for where it came from. Haymitch's lights were all off, he was probably passed out and hopefully not in his own vomit, and the geese were all sleeping. I turned to Peeta's house and saw that there were a good amount of lights on in his house still, along with windows opened. It wasn't too late into the night, so it wasn't surprising that he was still awake. I looked through each of his windows searching for movement and found none. Did he drop art tools? Or maybe he was having a flashback. Maybe he was hurting himself, or his shiny memories were clawing at him, hoping to take him over. Maybe he was dreaming of me killing him. Maybe he wanted me dead, and wanted to be the one to do the deed.

I scowled at the moon, thinking how ridiculous it was that I felt calm before because of it. Nothing so beautiful as the moon could ever get lumped into a category with me. I thought of how my scars most likely were glowing in the moonlight, as if alerting everyone how damaged of a person I was. I slammed my window closed and collapsed face-down on my bed. The bed was too big, too cold, too empty. _No,_ I told myself. _No._

I am the face of the war. The face that promised people to their gravestones, but I did not kill him. I did not kill Peeta. My mind goes to the primrose bushes that he planted for me, and I almost want to smile for a second. But it hurt almost more than anything to know that right now he could be sitting, clutching his hair, seeing fake images of me with claws, me trying to kill him. I was not a monster then, not then. That's when I still just wanted to survive, and to have him survive too. Well he was still alive, dammit. _I had a part in that,_ a weak voice within me speaks up. The monster of what I really am snarls at it, not looking for an excuse out of how I destroyed the boy. _I had a part of keeping him alive, of bringing him back._ I was also the reason for his life being risked so many times, his soul broken to tiny mosaics, so I couldn't really allow myself to dwell on those thoughts of saving him.

I couldn't go to sleep. It was too early, the night would be too long and dark and full of terrors if I went to bed now. I stood at the top of the stairs and my mind went back to its thoughts before, and saw an image of me falling and helplessly sprawled at the bottom of the stairs for Greasy Sae to find in the morning too late...

I sit down at the top step and slowly crawled down the steps while holding onto the bannister with white knuckles, so as to not tempt myself. I couldn't have Greasy Sae walk into that, and what if her granddaughter was there?

I shuffled to the kitchen, staying away from the utensils. Put on a pot of water to boil, and then I fixed myself a cup of tea. I went into the living room and set my tea on the table as I rushed over to the windows and shut all the curtains. The rest of the world was too close, too vivid. I needed it gone. When the curtains were closed I made my way back to the couch and settled in, my legs on the edge of the coffeetable, my hands holding my cup of tea atop my knees. I closed my eyes, my forehead resting against the warm mug. I wasn't even thirsty, or craving tea. I just needed to do something to occupy time and thoughts. Tea. Tea leaves. Hot water in a mug. Take a sip. Tea tea leaves hot water in a mug sip. _Teatealeaveshotwaterinamugsip._ It became a string of words that repeated in my mind over and over until I was finished with the cup. I stared at the television without turning it on. I couldn't remember the last time that thing was on. My mother and Prim were probably the last to watch it, watched as I played in the Games and almost died on television time and time again for another year in a row.

I try and imagine it. Sitting here and watching a family member on public television almost die and go through pain, and all for entertainment. I think about how it'd be if I watched Peeta and me, with our love story almost dominating all of the violence.

Without realizing it the mug was out of my hand. I looked, and saw that I threw it to the ground with a crash. Oh well. I had more than too many mugs for just one person; that's one way to get rid of the extra. Leaving the pieces on the ground nearby I laid my self down on my side on the couch and pulled the blanket around me. More often than not I ended up on the living room couch rather than in my bed to sleep. Well, really, I'd just lay anywhere and sleep. Sometimes closets or cabinets if I was having a bad day. Sometimes this couch. I once ended up in Prim's room and ended up locking myself inside for the whole day, laying on her bed. A couple of days I woke up underneath my bed. Greasy Sae always knew how to find me, eventually. She once said that I left a trail of grief behind me, and my sadness was so thick it could be felt. I just nodded, accepted it. She wanted me to smile and get better. I wanted to lay down and never move again until I just completely decomposed.

I closed my eyes and tried to gulp away tears. Nights were always hard to get through.

I felt the bow hum in my hand responding to me, it's only owner. In front of me there was the crowd, and to my side Coin was counting off all the acts against humanity Snow pulled. She gave the word that I was to shoot him. Before I do though, I took a rose out of my pocket. A white rose, something he'd surely love to to die with, and fixed it onto his jacket, right at his heart. I looked up at his face abruptly, hoping to catch him off guard and get the satisfaction of seeing remorse or terror or something of the like on his face. But he smiled, and even went as far as to let a chuckle escape his mouth. Furious, I look back down at the white rose that I fastened to his jacket – only no, it wasn't white, it was pink. I barely paid it any mind, and instead raised my bow to him, to the rose in his pocket. As I let the arrow sing, I realized it all too late. It wasn't just a rose, but it was my sister's. A primrose, and I shot right at it. I looked up at his face a split second after I let the arrow fly and cried out. It wasn't snow dying, but Prim. I shot her, I shot my own sister. She was dying. She fell to the ground and right next to her was another kid who looked just about her age that writhed with a spear through her middle and a net tangled up in her. Prim. Rue. Dead. My fault.


	2. ii. sun

I woke up with a scream and fell off the couch. I gasped when I hit the ground, my hands in the shards of my broken mug. I felt blood and scrapes, but I didn't care. I just left my hands in front of me and put my head in between my elbows, trying to regain my breath. The blood that was actually on my hands was my own. It was mine, and mine alone. I was able to calm my breathing down a bit with that thought, my actual physical and real suffering a payment to help subdue the nightmares of all the innocent blood that if it could would tattoo itself upon my hands.

I laid there, for a while, just trying to keep my mind blank except for my breathing. My eyes started to droop, but I forced myself to stay awake. I wanted to only fall asleep when I had no other option, then hopefully the sleep that would take over would be so deep that the nightmares wouldn't tear me apart. When I did fall asleep my nightmares seemed looser. They terrorized me and I woke up screaming still, but the details wouldn't stick. I took it. Every now and then I'd be given the break of a half of a night of unremembered nightmares. It was a vacation, and it helped me catch my breath and keep myself a bit more intact. Or rather, a bit less dead.

I was still laying on the ground when Greasy Sae came in, only I also had a blanket around me. I heard another set of feet as she found me and chuckled, as if my state is a laughing matter. "Rise and shine, Katniss. It's a sunny morning."

I looked at her with my eyebrows raised, and then went to help myself up off the floor. My hands buckled and I fell back down, my face just inches from the broken mug. Oh yeah.

Greasy Sae went to help me but I growled a " _no_ ," a bit too viciously at her. I got into a kneeling position and picked up the pieces of the broken mug. She went into the kitchen and came back with a box for me to put the broken parts in. I put the pieces of the mug in and finally stood up, and followed her back into the aroma-filled kitchen.

I stopped in my tracks before I got to the kitchen. The fact that I could smell something, and something good at that should be indication. Greasy Sae was throwing away the mug. Her granddaughter? Was she making us breakfast, could she? I was not sure. I stepped cautiously into the kitchen and had to stop myself from leaving out the backdoor and running until I collapsed.

Greasy Sae was watching me as I took in the figure in front of me. His back was to me, frying eggs and such. His blond hair tousled from sleep or nightmares or the wind. He was already changed into clothes and ready for the day. There was a loaf of bread already out on the table. I felt dizzy, and steadied myself with a hand on the doorway. If I let my mind go blank and just took in the scene in front of me, I could almost forget how much I destroyed of him and pretend that he was still the kind-hearted boy he used to be. It could be before the second games, no, the second games didn't even exist, and he was surprising me with a breakfast before I went to hunt. I would go and touch his arm, brush it with a tickle, and a smirk would appear on his mouth. And maybe I'd even kiss his cheek, as a thank you for the breakfast and for being a better person than I could ever deserve to have in my life, even back then. And I'd feel his blush under my lips, because no matter how many times we'd kiss for the cameras, the simple ones that happened when no one was around, with no one watching, were the ones that made us both blush the most. I took a breath, and wiped those images from my mind. That was another life, another Katniss, another Peeta. Greasy Sae came up to me and gingerly took my hands into hers, looking at them. "Let's clean these nasty cuts up, shall we?"

But I didn't look at her, I looked at Peeta, who finally realized that I was in the room. I still had my hunter's footsteps. He turned to me, and I was ready for a retort maybe, or the knife he was using to cut the oranges to be thrown at my heart. Instead he smiled at me, and his eyes lit up. "Good morning, Katniss."

It hurt more than a knife, I decided.

I gulped and tried to get out a reply, but Greasy Sae pulled me into the bathroom and sat me on the toilet while she wet a cloth to clean my cuts. I stared at my hands while she did so, and she told me to care more for my mugs and hands both. I was going to ask her why he was here, where her granddaughter was maybe even as well, but I didn't have it in me to hear it from her. When she was done cleaning my hands, I saw that the table was set for the three of us already, and the food was almost ready. I sat in my seat, and took a sip from my mug that was placed for me. Hot chocolate. I wanted to smash another mug, but instead I took another sip and refused to look anywhere except for the knot in the wood of the table. It tasted delicious, and I only had it a few times in my life. I didn't have any hot chocolate in my house and I tried to think of where it could have come from, but almost instantly I realized that Peeta probably brought it over. Peeta, always Peeta.

"You should wait for it to cool off before you drink that, dear," Greasy Sae said as she sat to my right. I realized that there were tears in my eyes, and by her look I knew that she knew it wasn't really from the temperature of the hot chocolate. I wiped them quickly and then sat on my hands, not knowing what to do or say. By the time Peeta put food on our plates, my left leg was bouncing, my entire body stretched on end with nerves. I muttered a thanks when he placed the food in front of me. The last time I saw him was some time ago, when he planted the flowers outside of my house. I turned my head to the window they were beside, the sun was beating upon the sill, but then quickly looked back and to the food in front of me. No, I've seen him since then, outside walking to deliver bread, in his house, with Haymitch, but we haven't talked or interacted since those flowers. It gave me a clear message: I don't want you in my life. And as much as I wanted Peeta by me again, to have the constant strength and relief and just knowledge that someone else understands some of the horrors that I've lived in, I listened. I have been selfish with Peeta, thrown the idea of his emotions out the window and used him to the best of my abilities. And in the process, I made a great friend and someone I cared dearly about. But that was before. That was before the Capitol took him and tortured him to break me. I took everything I could from him, and then unwillingly took his mind as well. I couldn't ever forgive myself for that, and I never expected him to as well. The flowers were a surprise (a pleasant one at that), but after he didn't show up again for a few days, I didn't expect anything else. But he was there, sat to my left, cooking me breakfast and making me bread.

Peeta and Greasy Sae were talking, but my thoughts were much louder in my mind and dominated my head space. I took a bite of the orange, and my lip burned. I took a habit of biting my lips, and the bloody and torn surface didn't react well to the citrus. I ate it in spite of that, or maybe because the feeling was easier to focus on then my thoughts. I brought my ears back into the conversation, and I realized that Peeta was looking at me. I caught his eye and watched as he gave a quick smile and averted his eyes quick. I could almost pretend that it was before. Before, when our eyes would catch and we'd look the other way. Before, when he was just the boy with the bread to me, and yet still, even then, I owed him my life.

I've been dissected and became a person divided into thirds of before during and after. All I was left with were the pieces of after: after the war, after Prim died in front of me with my name on her lips, after Peeta's hands found their way around my throat. After Coin and her disapproval, after Rue and her melody, after Finnick and his knots, after it all. After the berries.

And I was still here.

The brightness in his eye and the tentative smile he gave me was a curse as much as a blessing. I wanted to pounce upon those facts and hold them close to me. A part of Old Peeta is still there, my mind sang. It was enough to make me go crazy, the thought of whether he would ever be able to truly be himself again, or succumb to the Capitol machine of hatred they programmed him to be.

"Is she always this quiet during breakfast or is this a special treat just for me?" Peeta asks Greasy Sae. It's a joke, as if he's the before Peeta, but there was an edge of a harsh tone to it, as if to remind me _this is not old Peeta, but the Peeta that was programmed to hate you._

Greasy Sae chuckles. "This is not just for you, boy. I hardly get her to talk." And then she looked at me, and there's a sign of disappointment that flickered on her face. She wanted me to engage in conversation, talk to Peeta. I stabbed my knife into the butter as I coated a piece of bread with it. I wanted to as well. I wanted to hug him and talk and talk for hours on end. But that was part of before, and in this wreckage of after, there was no space for the ability of that.

I have done too much destruction to ever deserve another hug from that boy again.

Greasy Sae stood up and took our empty dishes to the sink to wash. Peeta was cutting up the rest of the bread, and snagged an extra piece to eat while I finished up my last piece. I sat in my chair and openly stared at Peeta while my finger traced the knot in the wood nearby me. A girl that I used to know, a girl that went by the name of Katniss, would never stare at someone so brazenly. Especially a boy. She'd never be inclined to, never noticed really anyone that wasn't in her bubble to protect.

But this was a different girl, I was, and a broken one at that. I shared the same name, I looked the same as well, but I was an entirely different being. I looked at my hand quickly, and saw the burns on them. I was scarred. I looked back at Peeta and he noticed that I was staring at him and he raised his eyebrows at me while a ghost of a smirk taunted me. I was still not one to stare with such a lack of shame, but I could with him.

Greasy Sea left quietly, or maybe not I was not really sure, but I continued to sit at the table and stare at him. He looked back, and the two of us sat in silence. I was waiting for him to say something, to lunge for me to attack, or maybe just leave. But he didn't do any of that. He just sat and looked back at me.

"It's good seeing you," I heard myself say, and just like that, whatever was tying us to just looking and not speaking was broken. I needed something to do because I could feel the blush creep up my neck. I went to get myself a glass of water and busied myself. Stupid Katniss, you need to stop with that. My hands shook a bit as I poured the water into the glass. _You've been too selfish for too long with him, and it's time you let him go. It's not the same. It can't ever be the same. And telling him that it was good to see him will not be good for either of you._

"It's good seeing you too," he replied, and I looked at him and knew that he watched me as I tried to busy myself away from the blush. I drank some water, and then sat back down. _It's good seeing you too. It's good seeing you too._ I wanted that out of my mind, and I wanted to know why now, why all of the sudden did he come to have breakfast after so long. I didn't know how to form the question though.

"You're wondering why I came over for breakfast," He said, flatly. Like he could still read my mind. _Old Peeta, Before Peeta. Peeta, always Peeta._ I looked and saw that his hands were clenched, knuckles white where they sat at his sides. I imagined my neck in between those hands being squeezed, or rather, my heart. That's what it felt like.

I nodded, and took another sip. He sighed and brought a shaking hand up, unclenched, and ran it through his hair. "Greasy Sae told me what you told her," he started. "That I don't owe you. That there were no debts or dues. And, that's not how it is, Katniss. I don't think that I'm paying off a debt. I'm just making you bread, because I want to." His hands stopped shaking and he laid them still on the table.

Is he lying? But why would he? He's really just making me bread. And so my mind dares to consider the fact that Peeta was still Peeta. I wanted it to be true. I wanted him to be able to be the kind of person he was until I volunteered as Tribute and everything changed. If anyone deserved it, it was him. But I stopped those thoughts quickly. _No, these thoughts can only hurt. You broke him, destroyed him, and you should stay away for him. It's better. Don't make him hurt just because you need comfort. Not again, not anymore._ "You remember enough to make me feel hope and I hate that." I realized a second too late that I said this aloud, my voice a whisper. I looked at him, and I knew that he heard me. His eyes were big and I turned quickly and walked down the hall and grabbed my bow. "I'm going hunting," I told him and didn't look again as I went through my front door. I would have laughed at myself for leaving my house and Peeta still being inside, but it didn't matter. We were both stubborn fools, and I knew that if I wanted the conversation to end I would have to leave.

I wondered if I'd see him at dinner.


	3. iii. strangers

Haymitch was outside, tending to his geese. I waved at him and he shook his hand in my direction impatiently, trying to get his geese into his backyard. I thought of how much Prim would have laughed at this scene, but I tried to get that out of my mind before I went back into my house and laid on her bed without leaving for a couple of days. Hunting flashed by relatively quickly, and I was able to calm my mind down and think only about hunting and the forest. I have only gone hunting a couple of times since I came back to District Twelve. The forest belonged to people I know longer knew, and at times I felt like a stranger within them. These trees, more of my home than even the Seam at times, still around, and yet now I'm a stranger. I tried to blank my mind from that though, and after a while I ended up with three rabbits. I cleaned them off in the woods and brought them to Greasy Sae, who was living back in the town, part of the rebuilding. She thanked me and tried to pay me but I left before she could and started walking back to my house. I didn't look up at anyone or anything around me. I didn't want to see them looking at me and they most likely didn't want me looking at them. They wished I were a martyr. It'd be better for them and their consciousness, to be able to look back at me fondly and never have to see me again. Instead I'm here, amongst them still, vacant eyes and accusing scars: This is what I did for you. This was my sacrifice.

People seemed to bring about a new edge to me that I didn't know before. It was easier dealing just with the people back in the still almost vacant Victor's Village than those that are trying to rebuild. As I walked down the street that and was almost at my house, I heard Haymitch call out to me. He was sitting on his porch, a bottle of liquor near his feet. Grimacing, I walked over to him. I stood on his porch in front of him, my arms crossed. He laughed at me for a bit. "I saw the boy leaving your house this morning after you stalked off with your bow," He informed me.

 _And I still have my bow_ , I thought to myself. But we won't have death threats between the two of us, unprovoked at least. I took a breath to try and calm the anger that I always got when talking to Haymitch. "Yeah, he was over for breakfast."

"He hasn't been coming around for breakfast before, why all of the sudden now?"

"Because he wanted to." My teeth were gritted. What was he getting at.

"Will he be over for dinner?"

"Why do you care?" I lashed out. He just smiled at me, which made me even angrier. When he talked though, his voice was level, and stern. "I care because we may not have those Games anymore, but I am still your mentor. Both of yours. So I'm looking out, and making sure that everything is fine." He looked at me, and his voice and face both grew softer. "Sweetheart, I just want to make sure that he's okay to be around you now."

 _Oh. Because Peeta sometimes thinks I'm a mutt still and has tried to kill me._ It's amazing how Haymitch could make me want to slap him and hug him both at the same time. I sighed and sat next to Haymitch. "He's fine. At least I think he is." I paused and thought back to this morning. "His fists were clenched at times, but overall, he was fine. Better than fine." I looked over at him. "He's still Peeta, Haymitch. He's still there," I said, my voice quiet. I looked away, back to my house.

"So is he coming for dinner?" Haymitch asked.

"I don't know," I replied, and stood up. "Will you?"

He laughed again, and took a sip of his liquor, signaling to me that our serious talk was over. "Sure, sweetheart. Sure."

I heard Greasy Sae come in to my house farther into the evening. After hunting I wrapped a blanket around myself and sat at the kitchen table with mint tea and sugar. When Greasy Sae came in I was ripping apart my cuticles on my fingers. "Katniss," she tsked, and swatted at my hand that was doing the damage. At her voice, I shook my head, and I saw how bloody my fingers ended up becoming. I got up to go to the bathroom and clean the blood before she could start taking care of me, and she started up cooking in the kitchen. I stood near the counter for a bit, and she realized that I was standing there and stopped cooking and looked at me. "I don't know who's coming for dinner. But Peeta might. And Haymitch."

She smiled and nodded, saying how it was a good thing I got those rabbits, and went back to cooking. I didn't know what to do so I grabbed my now cold tea and dumped it out while making myself more tea. I never was one big on coffee, even after trying it with sugar. I took my tea, wrapped my blanket extra around me and sat on the couch in my living room. I got a bit nervous. What if Peeta and Haymitch showed up for dinner? And what if they didn't? My life back in District 12 has been rather bland, and I liked that. I had routines, and most of them consisted of me laying around stuck in my mind unless Greasy Sae was around to make breakfast or dinner. I was being immature, but I didn't care. I didn't want to move on, and the thought of everyone around me doing so had me struggling to breathe. I wanted to wallow in my grief and I didn't care that it was not the right thing to do. I remember silently scolding my mother years ago for doing so when father died. She had a family to raise back then. All I have now is myself, and all I wanted to do was mourn. It's been some time, but there was so many people to mourn. I wondered if I'd ever be done.

At some point I felt the couch dip, signaling to me that someone was sitting with me. I turned, and saw that it was Peeta. He saw me look at him so he turned my way and gave me a smile. I smiled back, fleetingly, and then we both went back to looking forward. I stayed silent, and he did too. And I wondered if he was sitting there trying to come up with something to say, or maybe ask me about what I said earlier in the morning. I wondered if he was seeing me as "Mutt Katniss," and was just trying to fight through his mind. I wondered if maybe he just felt completely comfortable in the silence and was fine with not talking.

Haymitch came in as well, and started a whooping laugh when he came into the living room. Me and Peeta were still sitting there, silent and still as a stone (although we both turned to look at Haymitch at his arrival). "Man am I sure glad I came to this dinner invitation, Katniss. It sure is a party here." He took a drink of his liquor, and walked into the kitchen.

"You invited Haymitch over for dinner?" Peeta asked me.

I looked over at him. "Yes. He stopped me on my way back from hunting and I asked him to come over for dinner. I didn't really expect him to come though." Did I? I don't know.

He was silent for a bit, and then he turned to me with his eyebrows furrowed and a slight frown. "You never invited me over for dinner though."

I glanced quickly at his fists and saw that they were not clenched nor shaking, but lying on the couch in between us as he leaned a bit closer to me with his question. Was Peeta really upset that I never officially invited him over for meals? _Tell him that he shouldn't come over,_ a voice in my head advised. _Tell him that he's not been invited and won't be and shouldn't want to be and just stop looking at me that way it hurts too much._ "Peeta," I reached for his hand before I realized what I was doing. He didn't react though, so I left my hand there. I took a breath, and wondered how much it'd hurt him to tell him to leave. "You're always invited over for meals."

I took my hand away. That wasn't what I meant to say. I'm supposed to let him leave, make him want to leave. Because he'd be better off. And I keep telling myself that, but all I end up doing is pulling him back in. I've destroyed so many lives, and yet, apparently, I'm not done.

But he smiled at me, as if this was a good answer, and said "alright." I turned forward again, and we assumed our silence again until Haymitch yelled for us to come and eat.

 

 

Dinner was different and loud, but no one left wounded. Greasy Sae didn't stay, saying that she needed to get back home and there were already too many mouths to feed. I wondered when three people became a "full house," and felt a bit sick. I was so used to three seats at the table, and I wished Greasy Sae would have stayed just so that with one extra I could feel like it was crowded. Haymitch kept the talk bright and loud, sometimes going off on his own rants, other times looping Peeta (and a couple of times me even) into conversation. In the end, it always boiled down to the three of us, as if we were the last people on Earth. And I guess in a way, we are. Of course there's Greasy Sae and her granddaughter, others in other districts that I maybe eventually will want to talk to, a mother not dead who is dead, a best friend that grew farther and farther apart from me until we didn't even know who the other was anymore. The three of us were surrounded by these shades of people who lived and died, but somehow at that moment, it felt to me as if we were the only three people that were real.

Haymitch at one point started muttering to himself and sat on the living room couch to have a comfortable place to pass out. I gathered the dishes and brought them to the sink and started to wash them, when Peeta joined me and helped. There was small talk, safe conversations floating between how hunting was, how baking was, and how I was absolutely not allowing Haymitch to sleep on my couch tonight.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" Peeta asked me as we were wrapping up the dishes.

I paused and looked at him. He was smiling, nothing about his appearance seemed hostile. "I'm not sure. Why?"

He wiped his hands on his jeans. "Do we need a reason to hang out? I just haven't seen you in a while and thought it'd be nice to spend some time together...I mean, if you want..?"

He seemed so genuine, and even nervous. I wanted to remember how he looked right here and right now in my kitchen, and save it. It wasn't old Peeta or new Peeta, before or after or anything. It was simply, plainly, Peeta. And I should have said no still, but I am a selfish fool. "I'd love to."

He left soon after that, towing a drunk and nearly unconscious Haymitch out the front door as he yelled "To the star-crossed lovers of District 12!" I closed the door behind the two of them, and felt a chuckle escape my lips. It tasted foreign and wrong, as if I didn't deserve to laugh. I didn't. I thought of all the different laughter (Prim's, Prim's laughter was a song) that used to echo all throughout this house. As I walked up the steps it felt like the walls were closing in on me a bit, but I tried to push the thoughts from my mind. I almost ran to Peeta's house to make him come back over and stay up and talk with me all night if only to keep away the dark. But that was before, something we used to do. Help each other through our nightmares. And now we live with them alone, locked in cages of our bodies only to come out and prey upon us when we were vulnerable or asleep. I knew he still had nightmares, he had to, and he always said they were about me. I had a feeling that I was still a big part of them, but in an entirely new way. I was the one doing the horrible things in his dreams, the things that made him shake and scream and clench his knuckles white.

I felt drained. Hunting, interacting with people, and my thoughts finally reaching me and I felt myself get drowsy. I washed up and got in my pajamas, and by the time I laid down I was asleep.

He was in front of me. There were doctors, maybe some other friends (ghosts) standing around, but all I saw was him. And he's laid on his hospital bed, bruised and bandaged, when his eyes opened and he looked at me. He stood and started to run to me, and I ran to him as well. I reached out to him and his arms opened as well, for me. I was smiling and crying, and his eyes showed a certain desperation. And then he stops short, right before me and his hands are out stretched, clawing and –

They found their way around his own throat. I screamed and went to stop him, but found myself stuck behind a glass wall. Peeta's hands clenched and he tried to scream, but he couldn't find his voice. He was blocking his own windpipe, and his face was turning red. I screamed, screamed at the people that were just here to help him, or help me help him, but no one else was there. I fell to the ground as he did, and his eye were turning red from blood vessels popping. He crawled over to the glass wall and me, and put his hand out to lay upon it near me. Before I could put mine up, he collapsed in a sudden stillness.

I woke up screaming, my hands grasping all around my bed for Peeta. Where was he, why wasn't he here, why am I not waking up to him holding me and telling me _everything will be fine, it was just a nightmare, I'm right here–_

I whimpered and my hands tightened into fists clenching the sheets when I remembered that that's not how it is anymore, the two of us deal with our nightmares separately. My tears wouldn't stop though, and as I laid there trying to calm my breathing I couldn't get the visions of dying and dead Peeta from my mind. _What if he's hurt right now?_ The thought surged through my mind and my nails started digging into my palms with how hard I gripped the sheets. _What if he's having an episode and it drives him to hurt himself, or worse?_

I was off my bed and pulling on my boots before I even realized what I was doing. I needed to see him, to make sure he was okay. Peeta had every now and again been in nightmares of mine, but nothing so clear and horrid as this. Nothing that made it feel hard to breathe when I woke up, and nothing that felt so real. I just needed to see if he was alright. _He's probably asleep. I just need to check._

I went through the front door without knocking and shut it quietly. Haymitch, Peeta, and I never locked our doors, which wasn't the safest thing for us to do, but in moments like this, it was good. "Peeta?" I whispered into the empty house with no answer coming back. I ran silently up the stairs and opened the door to his room. His window was open and the moonlight showed me his sleeping form in bed. I breathed a sigh of relief and was content to just leave, when I took in his body language. He was laying as stiff as a board on his stomach, his fists at his sides and clenched to the point where I wondered if he was going to be bleeding. His sheets were tangled up all throughout his body, and he was wearing just boxers. All of the scars on his body seemed to scream out at me in the moonlight, yelling about how I was at fault for all of them. There was sweat on his forehead, his hair plastered to his face. His eyebrows were pulled down, and there seemed to be tears in his eyes. My mind flashed back to my nightmare I just had, and I shivered a bit. I couldn't just leave him like this, in his nightmare. _But what if the nightmare is about me hurting him? Seeing me here will not help that._ I took a deep breath and decided I didn't care. I'd do what I could to help, just as he always did for me.

I stepped gingerly over to him and wrapped his one fist that was closest to me with my hand. "Peeta," I whispered kneeling down. I brushed some hair out of his eyes. "Peeta, wake up. You're having a nightmare."

His breath stopped short, and his fist seemed to clench even harder in my hand. His eyes opened suddenly, and wide, and stared right at me. "Katniss?" He asked, his voice high pitched and near hysterical. "You're here. Real or not real?" He asked me.

I smoothed more of his hair down. "Real. You were having a nightma-"

"Katniss you need to leave." He pushed my hand that was holding onto his fist away and sat up, taking my hand's pull on his hair away. He sat in the middle of his bed, the sheen of sweat on his back shining in the moonlight. He buried his hands in his hair and kept his head down, shaking it every now and then.

"Peeta-"

"No," He growled. I stepped back involuntarily at the sound. He looked up at me, and there seemed to be a hundred different emotions battling to take control. I focused though, on his eyes. There were dark, and had none of the light blue that I was used to. He took deep breaths. "No," He said again, less threatening, but there was still an edge of hostility. "Katniss I need you to leave."

I stood in silence, and still. He shook, and tried rubbing his eyes with his hands. The war may have been over for everyone, but Peeta was always battling the Capitol now. Like everything, my fault. They used him as a piece to break me, and then kill me. They were able to do the former, and still were. He turned to me suddenly, and his eyes seemed to burn with madness. "Katniss. _Leave._ "


	4. iv. sorrows

I walked out of his bedroom and ran out of his house. I wasn't until I was in my own bed that my tears started to fall. I kneeled on my sheets, curled my upper body against myself with my head on the comforter, and punched the mattress a couple of times as I tried to stop the sobs from tearing out of me. I just ran away. I was a coward, I was weak. I thought of all the times that I woke up from a nightmare and Peeta stayed by my side no matter what. I'd thrash and hit him, I'd sometimes push him, I'd tell him to leave sometimes as well. He stayed. Always. But I didn't. I wouldn't. My mind flashed back to my nightmare, where I watched from a glass wall as he slowly died. I couldn't do anything in the dream. But what Peeta was going through, could I help him? I don't know, but I should have at least tried. I got up off my bed and went downstairs. I locked my front door with the padlock and all, doing the same with the back door. I made sure that all of the windows were shut tight and locked as well. I was disgusted with myself, and I needed time alone. I couldn't save or even help Peeta. I needed him to stop trying to come over, just after he started again. I needed Graesy Sae to stop coming over. I didn't deserve the company of others. The only person that I'd see probably was Haymitch, and the only reason for that is because I knew that he understood something about isolation. And maybe I'd be able to snag some liquor off of him. I never was a drinker, but at that moment in the night, with the moon trying to peak through the curtains with its accusing beams, I thought that I'd probably find some solace in the clear liquor like Haymitch found every night. There was no liquor in my house though, and I decided that that was probably for the best. I was tired, sick of myself, and done with the day (night? week?). I couldn't even bring myself to walk back up the stairs. I stood at the front door, double checked the locks, and just let myself crumple in front of it.

I only became conscious several hours later, when I heard knocking. I fell asleep in front of my front door, and I was wrapped up in fetal position on the wooden floor. My bones and muscles ached. My mind was full of half forgotten terrors and an overall cloud within me. There was another knock, and I remembered what woke me up. It took a bit to stand up, but when I finally did, I looked at the clock. It was four in the morning. Scratching my head, still half asleep, I peeked past the curtains on the window and saw Peeta standing on my front porch. I quickly moved away from the window before he could see me and put my back to the front door, standing against it, fully awake again. "Katniss, are you awake?" He asked through the door, muffled. I slid my back down to a sitting down position leaning against my door. _Yes I am awake. Yes I left when you were in the middle of a nightmare, a nightmare about me killing you most likely, a nightmare that the only reason you had was because of me._ He was silent for a bit. "I had a bad nightmare tonight, Katniss, and I think you were there when I woke up. Or maybe I was still sleeping then. I don't know. I don't know what's real and what's not and I'm afraid that my nightmares are going to start taking this usage of real or not real and use it against me...If you were really there...I'm sorry. I've been doing better but..it's not a hundred percent." He didn't know that I sat right there, and could hear him. It made me feel even worse. I ran away like a coward and he's the one apologizing. I eventually heard him walk back down my porch stairs but I stayed sitting at the front door. _I'm sorry I'm a broken, burned, scarred being._ I answered his apologies within my head. _I'm sorry I'm a coward. I'm sorry that I'm not good enough, not ever and never will be. I'm sorry that I destroyed you bit by bit until the Capitol swooped in and did the rest. And I'm sorry I couldn't save you from them quick enough. I'm sorry that I ever sang aloud, and caught your attention. I'm sorry that I made you get hit, that you threw the bread for me. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry._

The doorknob being jiggled woke me up. Graesy Sae was trying to get in to make my breakfast. I felt all the more selfish, for making her come all the way down here just to find out that I locked her out. I couldn't get myself to let her inside, or anyone. She had a key to the house, but with the padlock on she'd never get in. And she'd know something was wrong, because I never locked the door, nevermind padlocked it. I wondered if she'd go over to Peeta's or Haymitch's. I hoped she'd just forget about it. I dragged my body up and went to the bathroom. I didn't want to fall into a pattern of this, but I wanted a dreamless sleep, a clean slate. I wanted to succumb to a nothingness for a bit, and then deal with the world afterwards. I brought the sleeping syrup out with me and laid on the living room couch and took some. I felt drowsy instantly and found myself falling asleep, hoping for a sleep with no haunted and accusing eyes.

I woke up slowly, and forgot for a bit where I was and why I fell asleep on the living room couch. I saw the sleeping syrup on the table, and sat up, trying to clear my eyes. My mind came back to a conscious remembrance of what happened, and I waited for the feeling of nightmares, but none of that came. It was a relief and I sighed and fell back into the couch with my eyes closed for a bit. It was a relief, but I couldn't fall back to the sleeping syrup every night. I wouldn't let myself abuse it. I thought briefly of Haymitch and his alcohol, and how close I really was to making all the same mistakes. He knew it too, he knew that I was a slip away from picking up a bad habit and closing myself off from the entire world. We're too much alike to be able to stand in the same room with all of our failures and mistakes weighing us down and accusing one another. I downed a glass of water and slowly peeled an orange, savoring in the hushed sound it made that seemed to fill up the empty house. This house was too big, too empty, and the shadows screamed of memories that hurt to remember.

A loud and uneven knock interrupted my thoughts, and I finished up the last piece of my orange to peek through the window to see who I'd be ignoring at that moment. I looked and saw Haymitch, only instead of looking at the door he was looking right at me hiding behind the curtains to see who was there. I moved back behind the curtains and cursed myself under my breath. I hated him for how much he knew me.

I stood in front of the door for a moment, uncertain of what to do. "Katniss, I just saw you. Let me in." His voice had a command, but also a certain tiredness. I sighed, and then opened the door. He gave me a smirk, as if he won some competition we were having with each other, and I scoffed and motioned for him to come inside. My nerves were jumpy and I wanted him in as quick as possible so that I could shut and lock the door right away again. He knew that too, and took his time coming into the house. I rolled my eyes and closed the door as soon as he was through, locking it as well. He walked around a bit, and I found him in the living room. "So are you going to explain to me what's going on?" He asked, his voice hard. I followed his eyes, and saw that they landed on the blanket that showed my use of the couch as my bed as well as the sleeping syrup I still didn't put away. I blushed, embarrassed, although I knew out of anyone that Haymitch wasn't someone to feel embarrassed in front of over the use of a substance. Or maybe that was why I felt that way. I grabbed the sleeping syrup and put it back in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. "That was the first time I used it. I just needed one good night's sleep."

He sat down at the kitchen table and I took the hint to sit across from him. "First off, it's not night." Fine, we'll start off like this. I stayed silent. "Second of all, don't you dare use that excuse. Just needing one good night's sleep turns into two, which turns into a week, which turns into having to chase away the headaches you get during the day. How do you think I became the Haymitch you know and love?"

I looked down at my bloody chewed up fingernails and picked at them tenderly. "If you came around here just to scold me about use and abuse–"

"I'm not." I knew he wasn't. "And you know that."

"And you know that you'd be the only person I'd open the door for."

He smiled at me. "We're on the same page." I didn't smile back, and he almost immediately after so went back to a more serious mood. "My question is why you locked yourself up in a house like a coffin as if to rot," He looked over at the bathroom, "or apparently, to fall into a stupor of a numb void?"

"Who have you talked to?" I countered. I wanted to know what he knew first.

"Graesy Sae and Peeta. Both of them coming over with tales about how they're locked out of your house. And why should I care? You always just let yourself into my house, why should I care if you lock your doors?" He turned his eyes right on to mine. "So tell me: why should I care?"

 _You shouldn't_ , I think in my head but don't voice aloud. "Peeta had a nightmare."

"We all have nightmares, sweetheart."

I glared at him. As if I didn't know. "Peeta had a nightmare, and he asked me to leave and I did." I expanded, and he continued to just look at me. It got me angry that he wasn't angry. I wanted him to voice all the things I had been screaming at myself internally since it happened. "I could have helped him, and I ran."

Haymitch laughed, and I glared at him, wishing I had a cup of tea on me so I could pour it over his head and then proceed to smash the mug on his face. He saw my face, but didn't try and hide his laugh. "Do you know that one time, before the Quarter Quell, he came to me with a similar problem? 'Haymitch, Katniss is having nightmares I can't even help.'" He laughed again.

A different Peeta, a different Katniss. The same drunk Haymitch, he knew people that didn't exist anymore. I didn't laugh, and he soon took the hint and stopped laughing. "So you couldn't help him, and decided to not only run but also lock yourself into this house? Tell me, are you planning on staying locked up in here forever, until one of us finally pried open the door and finds you dead?"

"N-no," I stammered. I just needed a bit of time to myself. I didn't know how long I was planning on locking myself up. I brought my legs up onto my seat, wrapped my arms around them, and rested my chin on my knees. "Peeta deserves a better friend than me. I'm the reason he's all messed up. I just..." I faltered. It was hard to put my thoughts into words.

Haymitch looked at me with his eyebrows cocked. "You just are going to try push him away, in hopes that he'll find himself some better friends and his nightmares will stop once he has deserving friends around him."

I stayed silent. I had nothing to add, so I just continued to pick at my fingernails. He took it as acknowledgment that he was right.

"That is the stupidest thing I ever heard you say, and I've heard some pretty bullshit ideas come out of your mouth."

I looked up at Haymitch, scowling. "Everything is _my_ fault, Haymitch. He got taken prisoner and tortured to get to me. He went into the Quarter Quell, to protect me. He was ready to give up his life in the first Games for me."

"So it'd be better if after all of that, you just gave up on him."

The air filled with tension between us. "I am not giving up on him."

"Then please, tell me what you are doing, sweetheart."

I stayed silent. I told him what I was doing. I was giving him a chance at a good life. A life not bogged down by nightmares about me and then having to see me in the flesh. Why couldn't he realize that this was for Peeta?

"Let me tell you something. You push him away, and the two of you have to get on and cope with whatever you're going through alone or with other people? You won't ever be free. Or happy. Everyone I cared for was taken away from me, and so I became Haymitch the drunk. After the first Games, you realized it. That the only person that could help you get over your nightmares was someone who was right there with you during them the whole time. Most victors live with that need, only to know that anyone who could help them was dead, and sometimes by their own hand."

"Okay Haymitch, but this is different. We went through a war, for godsakes. He was tortured–"

"Tortured for you. The Capitol wanted the two of you dead. If they couldn't have you dead, they wanted you two so broken that you couldn't even look at each other again. And guess who is playing right into the Capitol's games still, even after they have fallen?"

Me. That was the answer, I knew.

"He is fighting the Capitol still, and you're giving in to them." Haymitch shook his head. "You need to be the one to go after him now. Since he first came to me before the interview night and told me how he felt about you, he has been fighting for you. You need to fight back. Don't let the Capitol win. Snow will be laughing in his grave, don't give him that satisfaction."

My blood ran cold. After all this time, after wanting to do everything I could against the Capitol (the old Capitol, I guess I should say), I was playing right into their tricks. "But Peeta could be happier somewhere else." My voice was quiet, and defeated already.

"Yeah? And I'd be happier if I never got reaped. You'd be happier with your family still around. Peeta would be happier if he could completely forget who he was and live by the ocean." Haymitch stood up, and looked down at me. "The only people that can pick up the pieces are the ones who know where they go." He walked towards the front door, signaling the end of this conversation. "I need a drink." He opened the door.

"Haymitch," I called to him, standing up. He turned and looked at me. "You still like him more, don't you?"

Haymitch laughed. "You're just three mistakes away from becoming me. We understand each other too much." I nodded, and understood. He continued out the door, and before he closed it he yelled out, "And unlock your damn doors and open your damn windows."


	5. v. audience

I stood in my kitchen for a bit, not knowing what to do. Haymitch's words shook me, and I felt guilty. It was a different guilt than I had been feeling though, because this type of guilt was something that I could change and work on but haven't. I couldn't change the fact that all of those people died ( _because of me_ , my mind still liked to remind me), I couldn't change the war, the berries, Prim, all the bombs, all the gunshots, all the blood. But I could change this. I still had a fight with the Capitol, and I couldn't let them win. I went out my door and started making my way to Peeta's. I was at his front porch and knocking at his door before my brain caught up to me. What was I going to say? _Sorry about locking myself in my house when you came to apologize, which by the way I heard and didn't let you know?_ I shook my head, I'd deal with that later. After not getting a response, I slowly opened the door and let myself in. "Peeta?" I asked, and got no response. I looked all over and he was nowhere to be found. I considered just waiting on his couch for him, but wondered if that was pushing it. And how long he'd be out? I looked over and still saw some flour left over on the kitchen counter. He was probably just in town delivering bread, I decided. I could catch him on his way back.

 _You need to fight back_ , Haymitch said, and the words repeated in my mind. So when I left his house, pulling my hood up, I found myself making my way into the town instead of back to my own house. Fine. I'll fight. The past couple of days (weeks? months?) I've been just floating through and letting myself get blown wherever, the only anchor being my grief and sorrow. Haymitch's words woke something in me. I remembered the old me, with a temper and a scowl. The old me was gone, long gone, I knew, but that didn't mean that everything I was back then was gone too. I've been stooped in grief, sorrow and ashes for so long, it was time to ignite again.

As I made my way through the town, I didn't see any traces of Peeta. I looked for people with bread or any other baked goods, but most people were just walking around, restoring whatever they were working on. I frowned a bit, not knowing if there was anyone I could even ask. I could ask Graesy Sae, I thought to myself, but hoped I didn't have to. I didn't want to see her in public, not now. I'd have to apologize to her for what a difficult person I was, but my mind had one thing on it's to do list right now: _Find Peeta, find Peeta, find Peeta._

A growing crowd caught my attention. Before I knew what was happening I found myself in the crowd, trying to look and see what drew everyone together, hoping to catch sight of blond. I couldn't see, so I turned to the person next to me and asked. My hood was up still, I didn't want to be recognized, but the person didn't even turn to me. He was on his tiptoes, trying to see past everyone. "It's that boy, that victor from the Games. He's going haywire."

My mouth ran dry, and I started scrambling through the crowd. _Peeta, what are you doing?_ I finally was near the front, and saw him. The fence nearby was broken, and a bag was thrown and ripped at the ground, all the bread that he spent his morning baking muddy and destroyed. His hands were bleeding and there were splinters in them. He was bent over and clutching onto a part of the broken fence, breathing heavily. I seemed to have gotten to the scene just after an outburst, and he was trying to calm himself down. No one moved, surprise and fear evident on their faces. They didn't know anything about the hijacking that Peeta went through, and this was something they never expected. I took a step out of the crowd and towards him. "Peeta." My voice was clear and strong.

His back tensed and he held still for a moment. The entire crowd was silent. I wanted them all gone. _Haven't you all watched enough of our life?_ I wanted to scream at them. The thought of Peeta having to deal with an audience during this made me sick. I needed to get him home. I took another couple of steps closer. "Peeta," I repeated.

"Katniss, leave." I knew those words. They were just as harsh as they were last night. I wasn't afraid right now, at least for myself. I walked up to him until I was right in front of him, and he was looking down and breathing heavily. I knew he saw my feet and knew I was there, and was avoiding my look. When he looked up at me finally, I locked his gaze with my eyes. They were dark, and I refused to be afraid. "No."

His muscles flexed. "Katniss, leave. You did last night. Do it again. Leave." Even in the midst of a flashback, he was trying to protect me. His voice was hushed, and I saw the people straining to listen and hear us.

I placed his face in between my two hands and made it so he couldn't look anywhere but me. "No." _Not again, I wasn't just going to run away afraid again_. His eyes started dilating, and the color seemed to flicker dark and light, though that could have just been my imagination.

A single tear ran down his cheek. "Katniss I don't want to hurt you," He whispered, and it sounded so broken. 

I wiped the tear quickly and put my forehead against his. I wasn't really thinking, but rather just letting myself do whatever I could to calm him down. "You won't." He closed his eyes and breathed deep. I tried to think of what else I could do to help him, and started humming. There were so many people around still, although some walked away feeling intrusive (well what do you know). I didn't want to start singing and attract attention again, so I hummed, just under my breath and so that only he could hear. I didn't even pay attention to what I was humming, and hoped that somehow this would help. He still wasn't moving, but it felt as if he was calming down. Our foreheads were still pressed together, and I moved my thumbs in small circles against his temples. Eventually, he opened his eyes, and I saw that they were the light blue that I knew and free from malice. "Hey. Welcome back," I whispered to him. He sighed in relief, and the next thing I knew he pulled me into a hug. I got over my shock after a few seconds and snaked my hands around his waist. I tried to find in my mind if I could pull this away and pretend we were back before the war and everything, but I couldn't. And I didn't want to. I pulled away eventually, and busied myself with fixing his collar. "Let's get you home."

When we turned, most of the crowd was gone.

Our walk back to our houses was in silence. It felt awkward to me, but maybe that was an after-effect of what happened in town. I haven't touched Peeta in any way in a long while, besides when I put my hand upon his the night before. And there I was dragging and holding our foreheads together. It was probably almost physically painful for him at first with that, most likely seeing me at that point as a mutt. I did it regardless. I'd do it again. And then he hugged me and it felt like he wasn't going to let go. _All in front of an audience_ , I thought to myself dryly, and I wondered if I was going to be sick. I wouldn't have been surprised probably that my first attempt at getting him back would have to be in front of an audience. It seemed like a sick joke, as if we were going to find Caesar Flickerman perched on his couch and waiting to interview us. I shook my head. _It's not like that anymore_ , I told myself. There are no more games, no more interviews, no more "star-crossed lovers."

All that was left was us; everything else faded back into a story.

Before I knew it we were on his front porch. He still wouldn't look at me, but didn't make an effort to go into the house. Did he think I was going to leave? Probably. How I have been since we've been back in District 12 would tell him so. Instead, I opened his front door. "I'll clean up your hands and get those splinters out, come on," I said softly, and he looked up at me finally. He nodded, and let me lead the way into his house. Our houses were identical in layout, so I brought him to the upstairs bathroom just across from his bedroom and sat him down on the toilet. It was bigger than the one downstairs. I worked in silence, and cleaned off his hands with cold water and medicines that were in the bathroom courtesy of the Capitol. I used tweezers to get the splinters out, which wasn't the most pleasant of times. As I wrapped bandages around the worst of the damage, I inspected him over. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

He shook his head. "My leg hurts, but it always is." I took in how heavy his eyelids seemed. It seemed that neither of us could do a lot in one day anymore. I tugged a bit on him, and he got the message and stood up. "Time for you to go to bed," I said.

"It's not even sundown," He protested.

"Then take a nap. I'll have Graesy Sae make dinner here tonight and I'll wake you for dinner. But you need sleep right now, and you know it." He scowled, and I almost laughed at seeing my usual facial expression upon him. He finally nodded and walked into his bedroom and sat on the bed. I stood in the doorway, and he looked at me. His ears started to turn red, and I raised my eyebrows in question. Peeta wasn't being old Peeta or new Peeta today. Today he was defeated Peeta, who couldn't find his words. It made me want to cry. I had a feeling I knew what he wanted to ask but couldn't seem to put into words. "Do you want me to stay with you until you fall asleep?" I asked quietly. A guilty smile ghosted onto his face but it turned into a quick full smile as he moved over on the bed. Gingerly, I made my way over to the bed and laid down on my back, staring at the ceiling. The last time we laid in the same bed was before the Quarter Quell. And he held me...

I tried to shake those thought from my mind. _Fight for this Peeta, the one in front of you,_ my mind commanded. _Your memories are just going to haunt you, no matter who it is of. Deal with what you can change._ I refused to let myself succumb into the guilt I felt for the broken man who laid in the bed right next to me. Not yet, anyway. Right now, he needed me to be the rock, not the other way around. I absentmindedly started tracing circles on his forearm as we laid there and he didn't stop me.

After a bit, he broke the silence with a muttered, "I'm sorry." He said it quietly, and I had to look over at him to make sure he really said it. His eyes were still open, albeit small, but he was refusing to look anywhere but the ceiling. 

"Don't be. I'm sorry you had to go through that in town."

He then turned to look at me, a confused look on his face. "Why were you in town?" He asked me.

 _Because I was selling a hunt. Because I needed to talk to Graesy Sae. Because I was going to help with the rebuilding._ Excuses ran through my mind, but I cut them off. It was my gut reaction, lie and protect yourself. There was no use in lying though, and it wouldn't help. "I was looking for you."

He looked surprised for a second, but then composed his features and turned back up to the ceiling. "And were you here last night when I woke up?" He asked me.

"Yes," I answered automatically, and I felt his arm tense. I stopped tracing circles on his arm, but left my two fingers placed lightly on him. "And I ran away and didn't help you. Sorry."

He shook his head, but was still looking up at the ceiling. "I would've hurt you. I could've hurt you, and could have today too."

"But you didn't. That's what matters." He seemed to still be having conflict in his head over it all. "Peeta, we can talk about this later. You need to sleep." He still looked conflicted but then after a bit, he breathed deep and nodded while shutting his eyes. I stayed until after he fell asleep, and a bit after that even too. None of the horrors were evident on him when he was asleep. It was nice to see that, but it also hurt to realize that it could never be true. Horrors were a part of us both.


	6. vi. charcoal

I quickly went down the stairs and cleaned up the extra flour that was still around from when he baked earlier. I was going to ask Greasy Sae to make dinner here tonight, and I didn't want to give her anymore work than needed. She already did so much for me, and I haven't been acting all that grateful the last couple of days. Back at my house, I cleaned a bit as well just to keep busy. When I finally heard Greasy Sae come in, I met her and her granddaughter in the kitchen.

"Well I see you're not locking me out now, that's nice," She said, but there was a smile on her face still. She understood, to some extent, that every now and then I was going to be irrational. Her granddaughter stood behind her staring at her hands, rocking back and forth and smiling as she sang.

"Would you mind cooking at Peeta's tonight? He had a hard day and is resting now but I think it'd be best if he stayed at home and..." I let my voice fade out, but she nodded and the three of us went over to his house. As she cooked, her granddaughter played with a doll she brought with her, and I helped out a bit with dinner until she dismissed me. I didn't know what to do, so I went back up to Peeta's room. He was still asleep, and still peaceful. I sighed in relief, happy that he was able to get in some sleep undisturbed by mutt versions of me. I looked around his room, and finally my eyes landed at his desk. I sat down at the seat, and although I didn't want to be intrusive and rude, my eyes wandered over the stuff that was laid out on his desk. There was a stack of sketchbooks and loose paper to the right, creating a sort of lopsided building of paper. _How precious, how easily broken,_ I thought to myself of the structure. The top piece of paper was blank, and I wondered if the entire pile was just waiting for his work to be put into. The pile was large, and my fingers flitted upon the edges of the pages. _Do any of these pages have images upon them? Are some of these sketchbooks half torn through? Do any of them have something he began to draw, only to stop and never pick up the sketchbook again and to start anew?_

I looked away from the papers and at the rest of the desk. Broken pieces of charcoal and graphite laid like ash upon the entire surface and I swallowed loudly to try and push that thought out of my mind. The charcoal was just charcoal, the graphite just graphite, and they were used to create, not as an affect of something ( _or someone, oh god, someone_ ) being destroyed. I focused instead upon the pieces of paper that littered the surface, taking in the different hues of yellows the surfaces were, showing the difference of aging of the pages. Some were adorned with spots of tea that escaped to their surface instead of being drunk. Edges were torn for the most part, some pages torn completely in half, as if only a piece of the result was something to be proud of. 

I stared at all of it in awe, and looked more closely at the paper right in front of me. It was a simple sketch of sheets on a bed, Peeta's bed. The way they were strewn across the mattress made me assume that he drew this after waking up from a nightmare, after becoming entangled within the sheets and then throwing them from his body. It was done in charcoal, and just the stark black nothingness of the shadows, although for mere sheets, made me shudder. I looked at the rest of the pages, and they all had the same feel to it: glimpses of the world that Peeta has been living in back at District Twelve. A loaf of bread he made, the flour all around still. A view from his backyard to the bushes of the primroses he planted in my backyard. A stray cat that slept near his backdoor. A handful of flowers strewn across the table, with several pages of close ups of different ones. Everything was treated delicately, with soft strokes but the shadows were deep and telling. I thought of how these differed from his paintings he showed me back after the first games. Those were so vibrant and hyperrealistic. And he painted the games, the very source of his nightmares. These sketches were firmly planted in the now, no signs of any of the horrors we have seen since. I wondered briefly if the stack of sketchbooks and paper held nightmared visions and the violence and death. I wondered if that black charcoal that showed the shadow of a sleeping cat was also used to show the black death that came for us when we were fighting our way through the Capitol. I dismissed the thought. I didn't know how it'd feel to see those terrors on the page with the life that Peeta gives in graphite, and I didn't think I could handle if I saw a piece that showed a mutt version of me. I closed my eyes for a long while, trying to shake that out of my head. The war took too much collateral from both the dead and the living.

Soon enough dinner was ready, and I gently shook Peeta awake. He woke slowly, stretching and smacking his lips from sleep. He looked at me and grinned in such a boyish way. "No nightmares." And I grinned too. We went down the stairs and sat with Greasy Sae and her granddaughter and ate. I realized during the meal that I didn't know Greasy Sae's granddaughter's name, and I felt guilty. I pushed my food around on my plate for a bit, trying to think of a way that I'd be able to figure out her name without having to ask it, when Peeta saved me.

"That's a nice doll you have, Jear," He told the girl, and she smiled toothily at him as she went to give her doll a forkful of food. He laughed quietly at it, and she laughed too, giving it another forkful. I smiled fleetingly, and went back to eating. Jear. My mind went to Prim's room back in my house, left completely as she left it. We never had extra money, but every now and then I'd be able to buy her toys, usually just for her birthday, as well as we had old ones that I played with when I was younger that she got. After I won the Games I used a good deal of money for Prim, buying her clothes and toys. Her eyes sparkled and every new dress she'd put on and twirl all around me in, burying me in hugs and kisses and played with her new toys. _Then she twirled in flames_ , I thought with my stomach bottoming out. _Then she was buried underneath the cold hard ground where the sun could never kiss her skin again._

 _Push it back, push it away,_ I told myself. _Fight_. I went back to eating and taking in the conversation, adding tidbits where it was expected of me. I made sure even a couple of times to lead the conversation, and I noticed that Peeta smiled wider anytime I did. After the food was done and the dishes were taken care of, Greasy Sae left with Jear in tow, who waved and said goodbye to the two of us repeatedly.

When it was the two of us then, we were silent, still sitting at the kitchen table. We looked at each other, knowing that we had things to talk of that were rather pressing, but willing the other to start asking first. My nerves came back to me, and I ended up blurting out, "So what was your nightmare last night? And your flashback today...in the town?"

He looked at me pointedly and in pain. I knew he didn't want to talk about it – I really didn't want to either, I didn't want to know how I hurt him in his subconscious this time – but this was something we had to talk about. Ignoring it would only make it grow worse. "I'll tell you if you tell me what made you come to my house last night." I felt a blush creep up, but I battled it down and nodded. He sighed, and ran his hands through his hair. 

"You were in front of me, and I just sat and watched you. You..." He smiled at me guiltily, feeling bad for dreaming these things. "You had a knife in your hand, and you just kept...stabbing a person in front of you. And each time you brought the knife up, the person changed. So many faces...everyone, bloody..." His eyes seemed far away, and his fists clenched and I was afraid for half a second that he was going to try and go after me, lost in a flashback. Maybe it was too soon to talk about all of this. But he soon regained composure and continued. "You woke me as you started to point the knife at yourself." He watched my face as he said this, looking for a spill of emotion that told how I felt about it. I kept my face neutral, and at the end nodded. He just nodded back, and told me of the town. 

"I was delivering the bread, and my mind just snapped, which it does sometimes. I can usually stop it in public, or at least hold it in, but I couldn't this time. A person smiled at me when they passed and was holding a rose, and it reminded me of Snow. His snake smile that he wore on the occasions when he'd watch me being tortured. I threw my bag down, and went to the fence and broke it, hoping to grab a piece of it to chuck of the smiling fool who passed me. I realized what was happening, and in order to calm my mind down, I kept breaking the fence that I already had in my hands and rubbed it in my hands before I threw the pieces. Giving me the bloody hands, and the splinters." His voice became monotone as he talked of what happened. He seemed to sort of distance himself from it, which I understood. I'd want to as well. He looked up at me though and smiled, life coming back into his face. "But then you came, and you reminded me of what was really happening. And you hummed the Valley Song."

I looked at him, shocked. "I hummed the Valley Song?" I hummed the first melody that popped in my head, not paying attention to what it was. If anything I expected it to be the Hanging Tree with how much it fell through my thoughts in the past couple of months.

"You hummed the Valley Song."

"I didn't even know I remembered the Valley Song," I told him, but it was more to myself.

"You do. And I do too," He added softly, and I looked up and smiled at him. The Valley Song. The first song I sang that he heard. The Capitol could have taken the memory of telling me about that moment, but they couldn't taint the actual one. Peeta would remember it, remember that moment and my braids, my hair, my dress, and me singing that song, and it wouldn't be tainted by the Capitol. The thought warmed me, and I was glad I remembered the melody, without realizing. If I tried hard enough, I could probably remember it fully, along with the words. "Your turn," He said, bringing me back to reality.

I closed my eyes for a bit, never wanting to remember the dream but having to for now at least. "I had a dream that you were waking up in District 13, and you saw me and the two of us were running to each other and–" I stopped because I saw him flinching as I said this. He thought I dreamt of what really happened. "You started to suffocate yourself." His eyes snapped to mine, surprised and a bit confused. "Your hands were around your own throat. And I was stuck behind a glass wall, just to watch. And I couldn't help you. I could only watch." I looked at him, his hand that was on the table that I just noticed, probably because of how much I wanted, no needed, to hold it. I grabbed for it. "That's why I came over, to make sure you were okay. Which you weren't. And I didn't help." I let go of his hand, and placed both of mine on my forehead, my elbows on the table. "Haymitch is the one that threw some sense into me, though. If it wasn't for him I'd probably still be locked in my house right now."

"Haymitch?" Peeta asked laughing. "Remind me to thank him later, then."

"He won't accept it unless it's in liquid form."

"I keep a stash in case I need to persuade him and his supply is low." I laughed quietly at that, and brought my head out of my hands. I yawned, and realized how tired I really was. "I should be going to bed," I announced, but didn't move from the spot. We stayed sitting there for a bit longer, and I felt uncomfortably nervous. "Would you–" I started out saying, before I even decided that I wanted to ask. But Peeta was looking at me, expecting me to finish my question, so I did. "Would you mind if I slept here tonight? I just, I want to sleep in that house with all the memories tonight," My voice was a whisper at the end, and I turned away, still not comfortable with the idea of being so open with my thoughts and feelings to someone. I looked over at him, and he seemed nervous and wary at the prospect. Probably because he dreamt of me killing people in front of him and the thought of me being so close if he woke from a dream like that is scary to him. "I can take the couch. I've been basically sleeping on my couch almost every night back at my house even," I let him know. I didn't know how he'd feel about me sleeping in the same bed as him, and didn't want to push it. To be honest, I didn't know how I'd feel sleeping in a bed with him as well. But the thought of returning to my home didn't seem like a good idea. I needed a night in a place that didn't drip with memories and decaying laughter, that didn't reek of smiles once shared.

He nodded, and stood up. "Yeah, alright." He hastily grabbed extra blankets and pillows, and made up the couch for me to sleep in. I muttered a thank you, we both muttered a goodnight, and then he went upstairs. I laid on the couch, the feeling of the blankets and pillows different and unfamiliar. I took comfort in that, in the fact that I wasn't in my own house, whose walls sometimes felt like they closed in on me. My eyes shut, I started drifting off to sleep.

I was on a beach. The sun seemed to be stuck on the horizon in a permanent hanging, as if trying to decide whether to go up into the sky or to sink and let the night arrive. Everything was casted into muted oranges, yellows, and purples. It was rather beautiful. In front of me was Finnick and Mags. Mags was making a fishhook out of material from a pile in front of her, consisting of metal and wood. Finnick had his trident in his hands, and was sharpening it with a smile playing on his face. A smile played on my face as well, and I wanted to sit beside them. For some reason though, I couldn't will myself to stand up, and so I just sat in front of them, and watched. It was quiet, peaceful, and I had to smile as I wiggled my bear toes in the sand. I took my hair out of its braid and let it sit naturally and down. It felt nice. I couldn't remember a time that ever felt this nice.

Mags looked at me then and smiled big. I smiled back, and she started babbling. I couldn't understand her, but Finnick looked at her and smiled and nodded. She then got out two words that I understood, "For you." I quirked my head to the side, not understanding. Her hand grasped at Finnick's hand and he placed a kiss on her forehead, and he turned to me smiling. "For you."

It was over in an instant and I didn't understand what was happening. One minute Finnick was kissing her head, and the next his Trident was through her middle. My voice caught in my throat and I spluttered, trying to find it to scream, or cry, or do something. I was paralyzed to where I sat. Finnick took the trident out and Mags didn't make a sound. She smiled at me the whole time. I looked down at her middle, for the red to come pouring out, but there was none. Instead, a sort of smoke was pouring out of her, as her body was taken over by what seemed a black shadow. The smoke continued to come out of her and seem to encase her, until I realized it wasn't smoke at all, but a foggy mist. Her skin sprouted up in burns, and then she was gone in the haze.

I turned my eyes to Finnick; the only part of me that could move was my eyes. He was looking right at me with the same smile. And he repeated the same words, "For you," and I still couldn't find my voice to scream out. I wanted this to stop, it all to stop. The sunset was not beautiful, was not casting oranges and purples, but all shades of red came into my eyesight. Or maybe that wasn't the sky that did it, but Finnick. Finnick took his trident, and pierced himself in the middle. He didn't scream just like Mags, but unlike Mags, there was blood. And there was a lot. Finnick's whole body seemed to be almost consumed by the red liquid. And I couldn't scream, or cry out.

I woke thrashing on the couch and fell off. I groaned as I gathered myself off the ground and laid back down, sick of the amount of times I've been terrorized into being awake, and then realized that I was at Peeta's house, on his couch. I stayed still for a bit, hoping that I didn't wake him up. After a while of still silence, I sighed in relief. It seemed that my inability to cry out in my dreams translated into reality. That was good. I didn't know how Peeta would react to my scream. Would he come down and try to help? Or would it trigger the bad blood to start to surge through him?

I looked out the windows and saw that the sun was threatening to spill upon the horizon at any moment. I winced at the reds that showed through, wanting to close my eyes from it but knowing if I did all I'd see was a dying Finnick. I shifted my body into the couch, my face just an inch from the cushions. I breathed deep, and suddenly the smell of Peeta was all around me. My eyes burned with tears that didn't fall, and I wondered if I would be getting back to sleep. That was a stupid question though, I knew I wouldn't be. I got up off the couch, and silently crept back to my house. I felt bad for leaving without saying anything to Peeta, but I had to. My mind was jumbled, incoherent, and the need to stay away from this house last night has turned into a need to be within it in the morning. 

I made myself mint tea and washed myself up in a long bath. When I was done and dressed and heading down the stairs, Greasy Sae was already there, cooking breakfast. I muttered a good morning to her, which she replied back to happily, surprised that I was the first to talk. There was a loaf of bread on the kitchen table, and I wondered if Peeta left it or was over. "Is–" I started off, but she moved her head to the living room, already knowing my question. I went in and saw him sitting on the couch, a sketchbook in his hand as he sketched out a plant I had placed in here just a couple of days ago. I sat next to him, and he stopped to turn to me. "Sorry I ducked out in the morning," I said to him before he could ask. "I wanted to get here before Greasy got here, and had some things to do." He nodded with a smile, and went back to sketching. Greasy Sae wasn't on my mind as I left his house, but I felt better saying that then telling him I just needed to get away and back to my house. Breakfast was called for, and we sat at the table for a pleasant talk while we ate, and my day, whether I wanted it to or just wanted to slink under covers and never be disturbed again, began.


	7. vii. losing

The next couple of days were a bit of a blur. Peeta lodged himself back into my life again, but not with the solidarity I was used to. Then again, neither of us were able to offer anything like that. There were days that he locked himself in his house and threw things; there were days I locked myself in my room or Prim's and didn't move. After a day or afternoon of that though, we'd pull ourselves together to eat and just spend time in each other's company.

One morning I was awoken by a smell that I hadn't had in a long while. I hadn't thought of them in a long while, and it never crossed my mind that it was a smell that I'd remember, but I did. Very well. And although I had my nightly terrors, there was a smile on my face within seconds of me waking.

The smell of cheese buns filled my house.

I came down the stairs yawning, and found Peeta making breakfast. "Where's Greasy Sae?" I asked, scratching at my head and most likely making my hair even more of a mess than it was from sleep.

Peeta set up our plates as he answered. "I gave her the morning off. And I made you–"

"Cheese buns," I answered, and he scowled at me taking away his fun. "I woke up to the smell. A better wake up than I've had in a long while." His smile returned at that and I prepared hot water for tea. We sat when everything was ready, and I dove right into a cheese bun, letting escape a moan of delight the moment it hit my taste buds. He laughed at that, and we continued our breakfast. "So, is there a special occasion?" I asked, grabbing for another. His eyebrows lifted in response. "What?"

He shook his head as he took a sip of his tea. "What?" I asked again louder. The cheese buns definitely put me in a better mood than I had been in. "You don't realize what today is?" He asked me.

"It's a Tuesday. I think." I scrunched up my face, trying to think of what day of the week it really was. He laughed again.

"It's your birthday, Katniss."

Oh. My birthday. I looked down at my cheese bun, and took another bite before it could go sour in my mouth from the thought. My birthday. I was eighteen today. My mind started with one of its lists, but this one was of all the people that would never have an eighteenth birthday. I shook my head, and tried to get those thoughts out of my mind. I smiled at Peeta, not wanting to make him upset. He was going out of his way to do something for me on my birthday, and I appreciated it. I hoped that I could enjoy the day. He laughed. "I guess you didn't remember."

I furrowed my brows at him then. "But you...did? You remembered. You remembered my birthday?" Peeta Mellark, who couldn't recognize memories with whether they were real or not and had to question it. Who couldn't remember the faces of his family. He remembered my birthday. He remembered my favorite color too, I remembered. But when I told him his own, he got confused.

"Yeah," Peeta answered, seeming just as confused as me. "Yeah I... I remembered. I did the other day, and I made sure with some people in town and..." He looked uncomfortable, and took a sip from his tea.

I thought back to the cave. I tried avoiding thoughts of the past, the cave –especially the cave– but they creeped into my brain involuntarily sometimes. What did Peeta say then? _I remember everything about you._ I smiled at him. He remembered my birthday. "Thank you."

The day was to be a peaceful day. I was thinking of hunting, but Peeta's eagerness to spend time with me had me suggest that we just take a walk through the woods instead. It was nice and calm, a kind of thing I didn't think I'd be able to feel again. The woods belonged to a Katniss from long ago and a friend of hers, but walking with Peeta I didn't feel unwelcomed. A meeting place taunted me, a lake tried to persuade me to visit, but I refused to go to either. This was not a day to sit in memories that were long gone. Peeta was at my side and the two of us continued into the woods, until we found a clearing and some large rocks. We sat, and I leaned back smiling a bit. My mind was blank, and it felt good after so long of being tormented by even the smallest shadow.

Peeta started up another round of the real or not real game. As we sat for a while we ended up laying down side by side on our backs. Within the trees, the game was kept seemingly lighthearted, and I didn't feel heartbreak with every question. Some even made me laugh. Haymitch falling off the stage, real or not real? Effie wearing mashed potatoes instead of an actual wig one night, real or not real? Me being the smartest in the class, real or not real? They all seemed to dance around the tragedy that our past was soaked in, but never plunged in. I was grateful.

"I used to help you with your nightmares. Real or not real?"

I flinched, not looking at him. Well, I _was_ grateful. "Real. We both helped each other with nightmares."

"We'd sleep in the same bed." I nodded. "I'd hold you." I nodded again. I felt him turn on his side to face me, but I refused to look anywhere but up. His voice was soft, so I wasn't afraid of a flashback, but this was a painful topic still. "It was easier than, wasn't it?" He asked, quietly. His hand came out tentatively, and he placed it under my chin, as if asking me to look at him. I turned my head. "It was easier. There were lies, unspoken and hidden, but it was still easier then. Wasn't it?" He asked again. I stayed quiet still, and tried to force myself not to cry. "Real or not real, Katniss?" He asked, his hand still on my chin.

"Real. It was easier." And when I looked in his eyes, they filled with a longing. Not a longing that I used to be used to and run from, not a longing for me. But a longing for how he used to be, how we used to be. I was just staring at another of my bodycount. _I killed you, just as much as I killed Prim and Cinna and Finnick and Boggs,_ I thought. I wanted to look away, but his hand was still under my chin. I wanted those thoughts out of my head, so I started blabbering. "If I woke up from a nightmare, you'd stroke my back and hold me tight until I calmed down. But you'd never wake me from your nightmares. You didn't have to, you always said, because me just being there helped you. Your nightmares...they–"

"They were about losing you?" He asked, and I nodded, looking down. He laughed a bit, and I looked back up at him. "I always had those nightmares, did I ever tell you that? I remember that now. Before I even talked to you, I had nightmares of losing what I never had. Not that I ever really had you. Somehow you'd still get taken away from me. I'd dream of peacekeepers dragging you from these very woods, you slung up like some of the animals you'd catch." He paused, and took his hand from underneath my chin. I turned to face him, very conscious to the lack of space between us. Fleetingly, my mind had the voices of doctors back in Thirteen, of how dangerous it was for this. They faded to the background and slowly, very slowly, he brushed his fingers against my own hand. I didn't think twice, it was an automatic cause and effect. I grabbed at his hand, and then stilled, waiting for his reaction. Would he attack me? Did I even care? It didn't matter; he entwined our fingers, and brought our hands up in front of our faces. He stared at our hands, and I watched his face. "You know, I once had a dream that you were reaped." He chuckled a bit at that. "In my dream, I volunteered and went with you in the games. We both didn't make it, but I had to watch you die before I did." He rounded his wrist, so as to look at my hand more than his own. "It seemed that no matter the scenario, my mind could never make up a way where you were mine.

"And the nightmares are still here. So much has changed, but I still have nightmares. You still have nightmares. We're just dealing with them alone. I had nightmares of you killing...but, but the old ones are coming back. Of losing you. But I already did, I lost you already."

 _I lost you,_ I wanted to say. I stayed silent. I was afraid to even breathe. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Katniss, the next time you have a nightmare. Will you come to me? Will you...come over to my house and wake me up? I don't care what time it is. I want to be able to comfort you like I used to."

Now it was my turn to take a deep breath. I was afraid of what my voice would betray, so I just nodded. He smiled briefly at me. He was silent again, but it seemed as if he was in conflict with something. He wanted to say something, or do something. "I want to hold you right now."

 _I want to kiss you._ It flashed in my mind, but I threw it out as quick as I could. It was a dangerous thought, and I had to remind myself that things were different. "Then hold me," I answered, my voice sounding stronger than I felt. His arms were around me within a second, and I was crushed into his chest. And it almost felt like before, when everything was simpler and we only worried about our death. Even amongst the woods and trees, he still had the smell of flour and wheat, a dash of nutmeg from something he must've recently baked. He whispered my name into my hair as his fingers weaved their way through it, and I didn't care what else happened today. I got my birthday present, and it was better that anything I could hope to get. _Peeta,_ my mind responded. _Peeta, my Peeta._

I will always be selfish, probably.

As the sun started to trickle down the horizon, we made our way back to the house. I avoided looking at the meadow. The flowers were starting to grow again, but the thought of all the dead that resided their now brought a sickening lurch to my stomach. We didn't hold hands as we walked, but I felt very aware of his presence, and I felt as though he was very aware of mine. And the space (or lack thereof) between us. And the way fingertips seemed to flutter like a butterfly's wings against one another's hands. When we got to my house, Greasy Sae was already in the kitchen.

Peeta put his hands over my eyes. "No peeking at the birthday dinner surprise!" He told me as he directed me into my living room. I chuckled, and sat down at the couch when I felt it behind me. Jear was nearby, pressing buttons on the television remote even though it wasn't on. "I'm going to go get Haymitch, I'll be right back," Peeta told me, leaving through the front door. I rolled my eyes. It was going to be a full house tonight.

Jear continued to punch at the buttons. "Do you want to watch television?" I asked her. She looked at me and smiled, handing the remote to me. I pressed the on button and her head snapped to the screen in concentration and amusement. She giggled, and I gave her back the remote and she continued her task at pressing the buttons, only now it was more fun with being able to see results from what she was doing. "Where's your doll?" I asked her, not knowing if she'd even really be able to answer me.

"She ripped her doll's head off by accident the other day," Greasy Sae let me know from the kitchen. "Haven't had the time to get a new one."

Is there even a place around here to buy toys anymore? I supposed that one could order one from the Capitol while this place was being rebuilt, but that would be costly. "Doll?" Jear said suddenly, looking at me. She had a frown on and looked close to tears. My eyes widened and I felt my throat close up. I didn't know what to do, but I knew she was about to cry. "I'll buy you a new one, Jear. Would you like that?" She must have understood some part of it, because her frown was gone and she smiled and laughed at me. "Doll!"

Greasy Sae came in at that point, wiping her hands. "Katniss, you don't have to do that."

I waved her off. "I can, and I will. It's the least I could do." She smiled at me and went back into the kitchen. The front door opened again and Peeta came in with a half sober Haymitch. He had a flask in his hands, and I hoped that tonight wouldn't have him downing the whole thing. He guffawed at me in the living room with Jear, asking Greasy Sae if she actually trusted me with a child. Greasy Sae, in retaliation, put him to work, making him help her set up and do arbitrary tasks that he couldn't mess up. Peeta sat nearby, and the two of us went between watching television and watching Jear, making sure she was entertained without her toy. 

Dinner was called soon enough, and I saw it to be Lamb Stew, (more) cheese buns, and green vegetables. Everything seemed decadent, and I smiled at it all. It'd be nice to have rich food without the thought of being carted off to our death looming over our head. I took a cheese bun right off the bat (apparently not having enough at breakfast) and as I took my first bite, Peeta snuck his hand into mine under the table and squeezed quickly and let go. He looked at me and smiled quick, and then went to eating his own food. Jear clapped at the food, loving every bite, and even Haymitch seemed to go for a laugh more than his flask. Greasy Sae cleaned up the plates and Jear got up with her, although she didn't help. Haymitch, Peeta and I sat at the table and talked, and everything just felt good. I couldn't remember the last time I felt this good for so long, and I thought that maybe just maybe, there was such a chance of healing from all the damage I caused. I would never forgive myself for the atrocities I set in motion and caused, and I wasn't looking for forgiveness. But maybe I'd be able to steal moments of happiness like this, and be able to get by.

Or maybe it'd just lure me into a false sense of security.

Greasy Sae was going to leave when she realized that Jear wasn't around. We thought that she stayed near her as she did the dishes, and she thought that she came back by us at the table when she dismissed her. We had Greasy Sae sit down as the three of us looked around. Haymitch opened the door to see if she got outside, while Peeta scoured the first floor and I went up the steps. "Dammit, I don't have time for you!" I heard Haymitch scream out and there was a reply of geese honks. "Jear?" I called out, looking down the hallway. She wasn't in my room, or the bathroom, or the closet. My heart fell to my stomach when I saw a door slightly opened. I tried to push past what felt like a lump in my throat, and wished that Jear was anywhere but this room. "Jear?" I called out, my voice unsteady as I fully opened the door.

She was sitting on Prim's bed. Playing with Prim's dolls. One of Prim's ribbons was drooped over her neck.

I could see how she was pulled into this room. Prim was too old for some of these things in there, most of them really, but she still kept them all, and at times I'd still find her playing with them. The hair ribbon Jear had was one she wore to her first day of school. The doll was one I'd find in her clutches if I woke up and saw she had a nightmare.

I don't know how long I stood there but I soon found myself collapsed on the floor. She was playing with Prim's things, in Prim's room. Everything was disrupted in the room. Prim was dead and it was my fault. Prim would never get to touch any of this, why should anyone touch it? They shouldn't. Jear shouldn't be in here, she needed to leave. Everything felt like it was suffocating. I was conscious of the first tear drop falling onto my hand, and soon enough the sobs were filling my entire body. I heard Haymitch still screaming downstairs. Foolish drunk. _I found Jear_ , I wanted to tell them. _She was playing with a dead girl's toys_.

I started screaming at some point, and felt someone put their arms around me. At first I didn't hear the words I was saying, wasn't sure I was even saying anything. I realized after a while that I was yelling many things. Peeta rubbed my back but I stayed kneeling in the doorway, looking down at my hands. "Get out!" I screamed at Jear, at myself. "Get out get out get out get out!" My hand punched the ground with every word. Jear started to cry, but I couldn't even hear it. Haymitch was yelling still, and there was still geese honking. I heard footsteps coming up the steps but couldn't focus on it. We were all in Prim's bedroom and she was dead. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a thought voiced "some birthday." A birthday Prim would never get. Why did I keep all of her things? I should've burned it all. Ashes follow ashes. I killed Prim, I should have destroyed her room too. Greasy Sae pushed past me and picked up Jear. Peeta talked to her, apologizing for me, and soon enough they were out of the room. I stayed on the ground, muttering "Get out. Get out."

"Hey." Peeta was back near me, his hand on my shoulders again. I tried to shift out of his touch, I didn't deserve comfort. And I most definitely didn't deserve it from him. He got me to stand though, and I walked down the stairs to realize that the night wasn't done with me. One of the geese got into my house, and Haymitch was trying to get it out. Greasy Sae hurried a still crying Jear out without a further word. I sat at the bottom step, watching the goose evade Haymitch. I should have felt angry that it got in, perhaps, or maybe laughed, but I couldn't feel anything. I kept Prim's room as it was, partially because I couldn't even consider doing anything else to it and the other part because the fact that no matter what happened it would always be in that state was a sort of comfort to me. I had bad days where I just laid in her bed and tried to cling to the disappearing smell of her on the sheets. But I always knew how it'd look when I went in. It'd always look the same, and be the same. But not anymore.

I hated myself for how I treated Jear. I couldn't hate her; she didn't know what she was doing. But I still hated what she did. Haymitch finally got the goose out, and downed his flask afterwards. There was a silence that filled the room between the three of us. I didn't care. I wanted to melt into the stair I was sitting on.

Haymitch chuckled darkly. "Happy birthday, sweetheart." He left, more likely than not to drink himself into an oblivion. I considered following after him and joining, but that required more effort than I felt that I could exert. Peeta crouched in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders. He made it so that I was looking right at him, only I wasn't really looking. I wondered, briefly, if he realized. His shoulders drooped and his head dropped, and I focused more on him. "I'm sorry, Katniss. I wanted your birthday to be special and it's all ruined."

My mind went into the woods. Peeta came back to me for the afternoon. Peeta held me and he smelt like what he bakes. Peeta remembered me still, and I still didn't deserve it. But he still did. That was enough of a birthday for me, but my mind was stuck in a rut from the evening. "Don't be sorry. It's not your fault my sister's dead."

His hands flexed on my shoulders, and he looked back up to me. "I guess you should just go to bed?" He asked. I nodded. "I'll stay over. Make sure you don't have nightmares." I didn't react or move, and he got nervous. "I can sleep on the couch though? Like you did the one night? I just want to make sure you're not alone with your nightmares, Katniss."

I wanted him to hold me and whisper into my ear until I forgot that everything was my fault. But I didn't deserve that. I deserved the guilt that leaked in my mind. I couldn't accept his kindness. "No. Go home."

He looked at me, pained. "Katniss, I want to make sure-"

"I'll be fine. Go home. I don't feel comfortable with you being here when I'm asleep." It was a low blow, and maybe something that could never be forgiven. _Add it to the list_ , I thought harshly. Peeta's eyes grew dark, and his eyebrows furrowed as his hands slipped from my shoulders. He stood up stiffly, and I didn't move.

"You want me gone because. You don't feel safe. You don't trust me." I didn't respond, but he understood. He nodded tightly. "Well then. Happy birthday, and goodnight."

I didn't have to tell him that my doors would be locked come morning. He knew.


	8. viii. scars

_That wasn't fair of me,_ I thought lightly as I locked my doors. The moment I was alone I seemed to be overcome with a certain dulled sense of self. My awareness to everything felt lifted, and as if someone pulled a sheet over my head. I felt everything around me, and was disconnected from it all. I was aware of the goose feathers all around my house. I was aware of a cake that was waiting for me, for everyone that left, on the kitchen counter. I was aware of the lights that blared from Peeta's house. I looked at his house from my window, and saw passing glimpses of his pacing self. "I did that," I said aloud. "I did that to you." Soon he'd probably throw something. Or maybe he'd paint. Destruction, creation. Was there even a difference anymore?

I went over to the cake that Peeta made specifically for me, trying to avoid looking at the delicate decorations and how my name looked written in sugar and his handwriting. He should have known it was all for vain; I never was one for a real sweet tooth. Regardless, I cut a piece and in my head sang a birthday song for all the birthdays that Prim wouldn't have. I took a bite, and the sweet was too much, too too much, and I ate the whole thing. It really was delicious. I wrapped the rest of the cake up, and wondered if I could give the rest back to Peeta before it in turn ate me with this horrid feeling that fell in my stomach. I knew it wasn't the sweetness; it was guilt.

The clock suddenly sounded and boomed within my blood. Each time, each second, seemed an hour long. The chimes stayed within me longer than they actually went off, and I ended up in the bathroom with my head in the toilet. I vomited up the cake, and my entire dinner at that. Guilt really does sink far into the stomach. I sighed and washed my mouth out, and then went to my upstairs bathroom. The upstairs bathroom had a huge tub, and I needed to soak. I filled the bath with scalding water as high as I dared it to go, and as it filled I undressed in my room. My window was opened, and I could still see Peeta's lights on. I shook my head, and went into the bathroom to submerge myself.

My skin seemed to turn pink automatically to the burning temperature. I scrubbed hard and deep, on my body right away, adding even more of the pinking tones to my olive skin. I scrubbed myself as if with a murder intent for a good five minutes, and then after dropped my head underneath the surface. The house was silent, but underneath the water I truly had the lack of sound, to the point where it could almost be heard. As my lungs began to burn and match the water's starting temperature, I brought myself up and gasped, breathing in the cold air. I was not about to let myself drown in my own bathtub after everything I'd done.

My head tilted back and rested upon the lip of the tub, the water cooled off to just a lukewarm at this point. I felt inability to get out, as well as just wanting to stay in the water for as long as possible. The window was small in the bathroom, but it was still there, and open, and the moon gave me light as I forgot to turn the light on. I was tired. The day was too long, and took its toll on me. I always was tired, but even more so today. I brought my hand up in front of me to see if it still had the pink of the water, but all I could see were the scars on it. I grunted, and threw my hand back under the water, trying to hide it from myself. The scars burned into my eyes, even under the water, so I closed them and rested my head back again.

I fell asleep at some point, and woke up startled with a scream. The moon was still out but farther down the sky and the water turned frigid. It was cold, colder than room temperature, and I wondered if that was my mind playing tricks on me or if maybe someone came in and put ice cubes in the tub with me. I should have gotten out, but I didn't. My hands looked like prunes underneath the water, probably my whole body did (I couldn't look though, not at everything). The night was cold, dark, and pressed upon me. The night knew that I was wrong. The night knew that tonight I was not a fighter like I vowed to become again. The night hated me.

I tried to clear my mind of that and spoke aloud. I tried to think of rhymes, the process of making words work together put my mind to work, and lifted any thoughts. I was never good with words. That was Peeta's thing.  
 _  
You were my flower, my Primrose to admire.  
And then you were ashes, and then you were fire._

Yes, words were definitely not my thing. My mind insisted to move on though. Made rhymes of the dead. Like Finnick.  
 _  
The sea was in your eyes, the sea was in your heart.  
But then you fought for me, your life ended before it start._

Rue. Sweet Rue.  
 _  
You lost your life and all you asked for was a song.  
I'm sorry I lied when I said I'd be strong._

My mother.  
 _  
You're not dead but you might as well be.  
A mother that's not a mother, you were set free._

I came up with rhymes for both people I knew and for those whose names I wouldn't ever learn. It wasn't even close to being a good enough apology, but then again I wasn't trying for it to be. I was selfish, I always will be. I was doing it to keep the silence away.

My mind saved the thought of Peeta for last. Words floated through my consciousness, but none would wrap together. There was no poetry or rhymes that I could put forth for him, no matter how hard I tried. And in the end, I just had two words that I said aloud. "I'm sorry."

I saw the water tremble, and realized my body was shaking.

I got out of the tub quickly and towel dried off as I stepped back into my room in a robe. It was still dark out, but the dawn was promising an approach. My hands went to my hair to braid it, a habit from a life I don't live. My hair was brittle and singed still, and could hardly keep to a braid, but I still put it in.

Peeta's lights were still on.

I turned away from the window, and then shut the curtains. My eyes caught a look of myself in the reflection of myself in the mirror, and I stopped. I couldn't remember the last time I looked in a mirror, or cared to. I was scared, as my eyes took in the robe I was in. I paused, one more look at the robe and nothing else (not yet). I took off the robe in one motion, suddenly it in a heap by my feet.

It was a known fact that I wasn't ever comfortable with nakedness. It was something people liked to joke upon, the rest of the world seemingly fine with the bodies we are born into. That so, it was other people's bodies that I didn't feel comfortable with. My own, as long as not on display for someone else, I was always fine with. I never took time to really take it into consideration, but it was there. But now, in front of the mirror, I was ashamed.

I started out just staring at my own hollowed eyes. _Move down,_ I instructed my eyesight, but instead I found myself leering at my reflection. One step at a time, I coached, and looked down at my nose, my mouth. Scars already could be seen, light ones still upon my face. Maybe time would get rid of them eventually. As my eyes ventured down, I came upon the scars that I knew not even time could truly heal. Down my arms like the streets of the Capitol. Across my chest like lattice work. Down my legs, across my back. No matter where I'd ever look on my body, a reminder of the battlefield would greet me. Burns, scars, they would dull over time, but never truly fade.

They were loud. They screamed at me. Screamed of everything I went through and how I'm still alive even though I don't deserve to be. They screamed at how I watched my sister die, and lived to rewatch it every night. They screamed that I left Finnick behind, when he had a real life, a wife and a child to come back to, and all I had to return to was ashes. The Capitol still had a hold of me, tattooing me with their war. They took off the scars when I had to still be in front of cameras and play their games. I was polished and put on display. At the end of the war though, neither side had a use of me being scarless. There wouldn't be cameras seeking my smiles anymore. The scars would stay, and they did. A history book of my reality on my skin. How could I have believed I'd ever truly be free?

My fingers absentmindedly traced my scars. When my right hand was on the scars of my left arm, I sunk my fingers down and started to scratch. My nails were bitten off and nearly non-existent, but I didn't care. I scratched, I just wanted to get rid of the damn scars. If it meant I had to rip all of my skin off, I'd do it.

But I stopped after a while. My eyes focused on my arm and I realized that I was bleeding. And it stung. I cursed my stupidity and went into the bathroom to run my arm under water. I couldn't rip my scars off. I was now going to have new ones for just trying to.

The sun was rising and I wanted the day to be over already.

I quickly got dressed, grabbed my bow and arrow, and set outside. I'd hunt today, and not come back until I had as much meat as I could carry. My arm burned the whole time, even more every time I let an arrow loose, but I tried not to think of it. Soon enough I had some squirrels. I heard a duck quack and chased the sound so that I could shoot it before it quacked again. _Little duck, little duck,_ my mind chanted until the arrow pierced it's eye. I made my way into the town, thinking of how I could give the baker a squirrel for bread, and tripped a bit in my steps when I realized my mistake. _He's dead, Katniss. He can't buy your squirrels._ My feet turned away from the town, not being able to deal with going into it with all the reconstruction going on. I was going to give the meat to Greasy Sae, as a sort of apology and to let her know that I'd learn to take care of myself, but I couldn't do it. My heart sunk at the still broken down bakery.

When I got back to my house, I went straight to cleaning off the meat. I didn't need all of this meat, and didn't know what to do with it. My body seemed to act before my mind though, and I grabbed all of the meat and placed it on Peeta's front porch. I stalked off quickly, in case he was still home. I wasn't sure if he'd want to see me right now, and I wasn't sure if I'd rather him hug me or try to kill me. When I got back to my house, I saw a loaf of bread waiting for me in front of my door. I barked a laugh as I picked it up and went inside. Even after what I said to him, even after triggering what I'm pretty was a flashback, he left me bread. Left it for me because he knew I wouldn't open the door. I was happy that this time I left him food too, left him it before I saw the bread. I could feel a little less selfish and hope that maybe just a little bit of his spirit could rub off on me. _Because it's still there_ , I thought fiercely.

I went out my backdoor and sat leaning on the house, the loaf of bread in my lap. I hadn't eaten all day, and picked at it as I looked at the flowers that Peeta planted. The primroses. Every now and then I lightly brushed my left arm and the raw new skin that was there. I'd have new scars soon.

At some point, Peeta joined me sitting. We didn't talk, but I handed over a piece of the bread to him, and he took it. We watched the sun dip low, and when the sky was the muted orange that was his favorite, Peeta stood up and held his hand out in front of me. "I'm making dinner, come on."

I didn't answer, but took his hand to help me up and followed him to his house. We were silent as he made dinner; I sat on the counter near the sink and watched as he prepared everything with an off-key whistle. He didn't ask for help, and I knew he'd rather only get my help if he asked for it. The kitchen was his forte, and I'd let him thrive in it. I took in his appearance, looking to see if there was any indication of what happened last night. There didn't seem to be any damage on him, or in the house around me. He probably cleaned up if he broke anything, I reasoned. Once his mind came back he probably went straight into fixing mode. I absentmindedly brushed my left arm.

We ate in silence as well. It wasn't uncomfortable, but more about us trying to get a sense of the state of the other before trying conversation. As we were finishing up, I couldn't take it anymore. "I wasn't serious about what I said last night."

His arm tensed, and he put his silverware down. He glanced up and saw that I was looking right at him. He darted his eyes away, and nodded. My heart sunk. Can I ever stop damaging him? I tried to put my thoughts into words, stumbling over them slightly. "I feel safe with you, Peeta. And I trust you. After everything, you're probably still the person I feel safest with. I just... have this guilt that surrounds me that lets me know I don't deserve any of it, or you. So I try and push away I guess, only to push you into flashbacks."

He smiled without humor. "I knew you didn't really mean it. Or at least I did when the sun came up. There's something about the dark of the night that makes it easier for me to believe that I hate you." He wasn't looking at me as he talked, but after he turned to me. We both smiled meekly, a sort of apology. I tried to make him leave, and he did. We cleaned our dishes then. I brushed the raw skin on my left arm against something at one point and sucked in my breath. Peeta looked at me worried, and then noticed my arm. "Katniss," He breathed as he put the dishes down and whispered his fingers on my left arm. I looked away.

"I didn't realize what I was doing, it was an accident. I wanted to pry off my scars. I hate them, Peeta. I hate them."

He took my hands in his and I looked up at him. He was silent and started to walk backwards, leading me to stand in front of him as he sat himself upon a chair. He released my hands. Silence still. He took his shirt off in a swift, soft movement, and we continued to look at each other in a baited silence. I didn't know what he was doing, but I didn't ask him. His hand, shaking slightly, tentative, reached up to my right hand. He traced the scars on my arm with his own scarred hand. Then, he took it and placed my hand upon his chest. I felt his strong heartbeat. My scars and his scars seemed to mix and blend so well together, even with our skin having an obvious difference of light and dark. I rotated my arm a bit, so that one of his scars would line up with mine. If you squinted, you wouldn't be able to see where he stopped and I started.

"Do you find my scars hideous?" He asked in a hushed whisper. I looked upon his skin and at his scarred self. It was the body of someone who went through a war and survived to tell the tale. It made him seem stronger. It showed that he was different. _And so am I,_ I thought to myself. _I changed, I went through a war. I'm broken and scarred and maybe not strong, not strong as him, but I'm still here._ "No."

He cupped my face with his hands, and I felt no tremble now. "Then realize, please, that yours are not hideous either. _You_ are not hideous."

His hands dropped and we stayed like that for a bit, him sitting and me standing in front of him, in silence. Ghosting my fingers near his eyelids, I went to move them closed, and he understood and closed them. His body was tensed, his hands in fists again. I wondered, fleetingly, if just even my smell would be able to cause the tracker jacker venom to course through his bloodstream again. I pushed that thought away, and brushed at his forehead just above his eyebrows. The tension in his muscles seemed to leave, so I continued and had my hand trace his jaw and under his eyelids. "You're not sleeping well," I murmured, looking at the purple that settled underneath his eyes. "Neither are you," He replied, and his lips turned up just so slightly. My thumb moved to the corner of his mouth, transfixed on the spot since it moved into a smile. Fell back down to his jaw, and traced it again. He was still as stone under my touch. I wondered, fleetingly, what I was doing. I was no longer looking at his scars, although if I focused my attention they were there. I was able to see past them, easily, and see him though. So why couldn't I do that with myself?

I dropped my hands after a while, but he sat there, still and quiet, for a while. I was still too, standing in front of him. He opened his eyes slowly, and stood up. He took my hand in his, and started leading me upstairs. "Come on," He said, and opened up the door to a room I had never been in.


	9. ix. pigments

The first thing I took in was color.

It exploded in front of my eyes the moment the door opened. Peeta tried to drag me in more, but I was stuck right at the doorway. My eyes tried to look every which way at once, traveling all around the room again and again. The greens of the trees, the oranges of the sun, the reds of the apples, the browns of the dirt, the blues of the sky, the film of grey that seemed to forever coat the area of the Seam no matter what. All of these colors were enclosed in this one room, seemingly more alive than they were anywhere else.

I was in Peeta's art studio.

I took in the actual images next. I was a bit afraid to when I realized that I was in his art studio. Last time I saw his paintings, they were of the first Games. Those were hard enough. Thinking about everything else that we've been through since the first games, I almost lost my breath thinking how unbearable it'd be to see the hyperrealistic recreations of Peeta's of those scenes. But I was surrounded instead, by everyday life. Like his sketches. Stills of everyday life, but more than that. Here, in his art studio, it seemed that his paintings were the real things, the world outside just a cheap imitation made of pigments and brush strokes. He painted on canvases and tough papers. On the walls themselves – quick sketch paintings or swirls of different colors as if trying to figure out which colors to use together, and even some on his desk. The desk was messy, a change from the usual organized surroundings that Peeta was in. There were paints of all different kind in rows, loose papers with sketches, and photographs that I assumed he used as references.

Eventually I felt Peeta's eyes upon me as I took in the environment. I had moved into the studio at last, and realized that my hands were just inches from a board with a painting of a window in the sunshine. I looked at him and smiled, not a full one but a bigger smile than I've been able to do for a long while (then again I've never been much for smiling). Within seconds he was standing right beside me. "All of my paintings are boring now, I know–"

"No," I interrupted and turned quickly to look at him and then back at the painting in front of me. "Peeta, they're all wonderful," I whispered, my hand still lingering just inches away from the surface.

"Thank you." I looked up at him, and realized that he still didn't have a shirt on. I quickly got rid of that thought in my mind.

"They're very...different," I stated, vaguely, "from your other work I've seen." His other work, of the first games. I was curious about the subject matter. Back then, in another life, Peeta painted the nightmares and his dark thoughts to help him cope. The amount of nightmares that he has been through has only multiplied and I could only imagine the amount of subject material he found himself in.

He caught on to what I was referring to. "Everything is different now, Katniss." His voice was whispered, and I wondered, fleetingly whether I was going to cry. _Yes, everything_ is _different, isn't it?_ I thought to myself. He continued. "After the first games, all I could see when I closed my eyes were images from them. And you. And to get it out of my mind, I had to shut it off and paint it. And then, I changed a bit," His voice broke off to emit a humorless chuckle. "My mind got a bit darker, you know? In the beginning I tried... If I was having a hard night I'd try and paint what I saw. But I couldn't turn my brain off anymore. As I tried to paint the visions, they seemed to stare me down in the pigments... It wasn't a sort of therapy, or release for me anymore. I used to have a clear mind when I painted or drew, but my mind only came louder then. And anytime I'd try to draw my visions, it'd kick off a flashback." I shivered involuntarily. I knew how much art meant to Peeta and the thought of it leading him to an episode was disheartening. "So I stopped painting for a while. Drawing too. And then one time, after baking a good couple of loaves of bread, I took up a piece of paper and started drawing them. There's something rather different about drawing or painting from something that is right in front of you. You have to pay attention to it the whole time. Notice where the light hits it, where other objects are, everything. Trying to use my mind to come up with a piece just proved that I'd find some horrid corner of my consciousness. But painting what was around me, it helped my mind clear, and art came back to me."

He smiled, as he glanced sheepishly around the room. "I get frustrated sometimes at how absolutely boring my paintings have become. Sometimes I try to exaggerate the colors. Or completely change them. Like here," He grabbed my hand and went to the corner by the desk, where he picked through a couple of the boards that he had piled and brought one out. "You see?" He said pointing to it. His voice was so animated and his face looked so happy that I smiled, even though I had no idea what he was talking about. "I did this painting of my hands from a photograph I took, but I messed around with the colors. You don't find that green right there in a real hand," he said pointed to the board. He pointed elsewhere, "And the red at your fingertips is never that vivid. And together, you see how offsetting those two colors are?"

I felt completely at a loss for what he was talking about. I've never been an art guru, and most definitely did not know the first thing about how colors interact near each other. "It's wonderful, Peeta," I told him, and it was. He smiled at me, realizing that he went off on a tangent that I couldn't really follow and placed the board back down. "You always painted people though," I said before realizing I spoke aloud. I looked at him. "You used to always paint people."

His smile was to one side. "Yeah well, like I said. I work from whatever's in front of me. I thought about sitting in the square and sketching the people around me, but I'm not really ready for that. I don't really interact with anyone really. I guess I could go over to Haymitch's after he passes out drunk and paint him, he stays still for long enough." He laughs at the thought. "That is just not a subject I really would want to paint. I see Greasy Sae and Jear around, but," he looked away from me hurriedly, and I understood. I all but closed that door yesterday with my actions. Not that Grease Sae would say no if Peeta asked, but more of the fact that Peeta wouldn't feel comfortable to ever even get to asking. I thought of Jear, and thought of how much she'd love a beautiful painting of her and her doll done by Peeta, until I remembered how I treated her. _Her doll's head is off, anyway._

"I'm around," I brought up casually. I didn't know why I said it but I did. Peeta had painted me before, but he painted me as I was within the games. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious if he ever thought about painting me nowadays. It was a foolish, selfish thought, but I was a foolish selfish girl ( _woman_ , my mind cawed, _you're a woman now, and eighteen_ ).

I turned to him, and saw that he was stammering to try and think of what to say. _To tell me he didn't want to paint me anymore,_ I thought to myself. It was a stupid thing to say, why did I say that? "I know you are," he finally got out and I looked away. "I just didn't ever ask you because I thought you'd be completely against the thought."

I thought about it. "Do you want to paint me?" I asked, quietly. I was embarrassed now, the question was a genuine curiosity of mine.

"Yes. Always." I looked up at him, and saw that he was the one that had a faint blush about him. "I always want to paint you."

I looked around the room, and then finally looked at him. I didn't feel foolish anymore, and stated simply, "so paint me."

He was silent for a moment, and then broke out into a smile. "Are you sure?"

I thought about everything we've been through. And how we came back to District 12 and we're different people. But deep down, there's still us. I see it in Peeta everyday. There's not just old Peeta or new Peeta, but so many different facets of him, all put together, making the person I see in front of myself. It was plainly just Peeta, always Peeta. I felt that there were different facets of me as well, sure, but they all were jumbled up in a heap. Picked apart, broken into more and more pieces, some parts just grains of sand. And I realized, for the first time coming back, that I didn't want to just simmer in the pieces. I wanted them to be put back together.

And I wanted to make Peeta smile. So I told him yes. He smiled, but then his eyebrows furrowed and I wondered if maybe I shouldn't have let him and that this was a bad idea. But as he started moving a chair to sit perpendicular to a light he turned on, I realized that he was just in his art mode.

"Just sit on the chair, however you're comfortable."

I sat and watched as he set up. He brought an easel with a board on it and planted it right in front of me. Adjusting the board height so he could see me just above it, he then took on the task to setting up his paints and other supplies. I felt a bit nervous, never having truly posed for a painting before. I picked at my nails absentmindedly, and looked up when he sat down.

We stared at each other for a bit, but then he got up and stood in front of me. He looked back and forth between the light and the my face, and scooted the chair I sat in at a slightly different angle. He set his hand on my shoulder, and warmth seemed to flow through me from his touch. He moved slowly, brushed my hair over my shoulder on one side and letting it fall on the other. His hand trailed down my arm and traced my scars. "I want you to realize how beautiful you and your scars are. I want to help you realize that with my painting."

 _Could he do that?_ I wonder if that's why I wanted to be painted; to see my scars. My scars all over my body. Oh. My body. "I–" I started. I didn't know what to say though, or what was expected of me. Was there anything expected of me?

He noticed the sudden tension in me and guessed easily. "Wear whatever you're comfortable with, Katniss. I'm not asking you to do anything out of your comfort zone."

I nodded, and he went back to continue setting up. I sat there, moving around a bit. Comfortable. What was I comfortable with? Nothing, really. Absolutely nothing. I shook that out of my mind. No, this was about need. What did I need? Did I need to see past my scars on me? I looked down on my left arm, the angry raw skin seeming to scream at me. What I needed was to be able to see past my scars. I could see past Peeta's, but I couldn't see past mine. I watched him as he started squeezing the paints from the tubes on a palette, and tried to focus on his scars. He still didn't put his shirt back on. Did he do that on purpose? Did he want to keep his scars out in the open for me to look at and see? And then suddenly, as I looked at his scars, they didn't make me feel guilty, or sad, but empowered. And mine too. I needed to conquer mine.

My mind fleetingly thought back to Johanna Mason as my hands were at the bottom of my shirt. I hadn't thought of her in a while, mainly I guess because I didn't feel as much guilt over her than others. She had no one left to love, she told me, before meeting me. I couldn't rip that away from her, like I did with so many others. But she still got tortured for me. For "the cause." I thought of before we really knew each other (did we really know each other now? We were women within walls, under floorboards, behind armour. Did we really know each other? Or was it that there was no one else that could understand me more than her?). When I first saw her, she completely stripped. And Peeta said it was because I was pure. _Pure_. What a silly word for me. I've ruined too much to be pure. My scars were created of nothing pure, but instead the black poison that I both drank and distributed. I am not pure, and never would be. In one motion I yanked my shirt off over my head. I waited for a moment for a blush to creep in or embarrassment to sink through, but it didn't come. Proud of myself for that, my hand went to the clasp on my bra.

When Peeta looked back up at me I registered the surprise on his face. I smirked slightly, knowing that he expected to be painting a fully clothed Katniss. Before him I presented the scarred Katniss that I became, the Katniss that he would have to paint and portray. I thought briefly, that I should be embarrassed now, naked from the waist up. Instead I shifted in my seat, my legs crosslegged, and stared straight at Peeta. He nodded, picked up a pencil to start the initial sketch, and went to work.

I stayed as still as possible. Every now and then I'd glance down without moving my head or my body. My prep team from the games had seen me naked more times than I could count. All of Panem had seen varying degrees of skin over the course of games. "You're slouching," Peeta told me teasingly, and I straightened up my back. Maybe, if I modeled for Peeta before the war and everything that happened, I'd be embarrassed and completely wrapped in blankets. I'd be too afraid of his loving eyes caressing my skin with just a look, him learning even more about me that I didn't want anyone to ever know.

The war stripped me of my modesty though. It stripped me of every part that made me feel human. I didn't know what I was anymore, besides Katniss. I was Katniss. Peeta was Peeta. And I didn't feel any embarrassment in this setting with my entire top half exposed. I thought maybe it had to do with the fact that I was merely just modeling for a painting by Peeta. Peeta was in full-blown art mode, and I wondered if he could even get excited by the sight of a breast in this mindset.

He put his pencil down, and picked up the paintbrush.

I watched him closely, carefully, as he swirled the brush with several different pigments and set it upon the board. I wondered how the painting would come out, if he really would portray me and my scars beautiful. I laughed inwardly, thinking how a painting of scarred and gritty Katniss would look next to the paintings beautiful sunsets, hunger-inducing baked goods, and beautiful every day snippets. I remembered the sketch he did suddenly, of the Primroses. "Prim..." I said aloud by mistake.

Peeta's eyes shot up to mine, his hand hesitating. I cursed myself for breaking him out of his artist moment, and smiled at him and nodded so that he'd know that I was okay and he could continue.

"You saved her, you know," I said quietly. I didn't know if Peeta could talk when he was painting, or if it'd be a distraction that he'd ignore.

Without breaking from his strokes, he asked me, "how?"

"When you were still...away." I didn't want to say 'Capitol," or anything associated with it. That word felt taboo to say aloud, and I didn't want to invoke an episode because of it. "You warned us about the bombs. You gave us a heads up to go into shelters, gave us at least ten minutes more to be able to collect ourselves and get down to safety." I gulped, but continued to watch him as he continued to paint. The only recognition that he could hear me even was a slightly tighter grip on the paintbrush. "You saved Prim. She ran through the doors just in time, delayed because she went back for the stupid cat. If you didn't tell us–" I stopped myself, and blinked for a long bit. _If you didn't tell us she would have died in flames for my fault, just sooner._ It seemed no matter what, Prim was always, truly, the girl on fire. But Peeta saved her more than I ever could. "Thank you."

"You don't need to thank me Katniss," He said, and that was the end of that conversation. Talk continued to come and go as he painted me, but subject matter stayed lighter. The moon crawled lazily across the sky as the time went on. My bones ached and wanted to move. But I didn't. And then finally, Peeta looked at me smiling, and said, "done."

Nervous now, I stood up slowly feeling the blood rush back through my entire body. Peeta was standing, looking at the piece nervously and back to me, anticipating my reaction. He came over to me and laughed, put his hands over my eyes and guided me to stand in front of the board. "You ready?" He whispered in my ear, just an inch away. I nodded, and he uncovered my eyes. "It's still wet, so be careful."

The painting in front of me was of me, but there was no way it was me. She sat up straight and tall, and most importantly, strong. She wasn't afraid, and stared right at you, as if demanding a confrontation for looking at her. Her top half was naked, but adorned in scars. And the scars were a part of her, as much as her hair, her fingers, everything. They looked so natural upon her, as if she was born with them. But she couldn't be, and her stare told you that she earned each and every one. Colors jumped out all around. Reds and yellows, oranges blended in between, and blues and purples filling the shadows. Every area had a color, and they all weaved together to create this woman. To create _me._

I wanted to touch it, but remembered that it was still wet. "Peeta," came out in a breath of mine as I stared at it. He turned me around, his hands locked on my shoulders and his head down on my level. "It's beautiful."

"You're beautiful," He answered automatically, and I just smiled. He smiled in return. I saw on his arms scars that seemed small dots, and brushed my fingers over them. "These are the scars from when they tried to make me hate you," He said. The hijacking scars, from shooting venom into his bloodstream. He took my hand, and laid it on a burn scar on his chest. I absentmindedly took in the paint on his fingertips, and splotches of color on him as well. His heartbeat sang to me. "These are the scars from when I tried to save you." He made it to the square, was there when I was on fire. Ignited as well.

I snaked my hands from his chest to around and up his back, and pulled him into a hug. I laid my head on his shoulder, and his went on mine and nudged my hair. There was little to no space between us. "Thank you," I cracked out. Could I ever say thank you enough times to Peeta? Would I ever get beyond being in thanks of him? I knew I wouldn't and that he deserved to hear it. He said, "Thank you," as well, which confused me a bit but I didn't dwell on it. What was there to thank me for? I didn't care, and just closed my eyes for a bit, and when I opened I saw us in a mirror in the room. I almost laughed at what I saw, our scars lined up almost to the point that it seemed as if we were just two jagged puzzle pieces lined up. We seemed a cocoon of old and new flesh, bound by the raised and darkened scars.

Suddenly I realized as I looked into the mirror that we both didn't have shirts on. And although I felt no embarrassment before with my exposed skin, I blushed now. Then I was just becoming a piece of art, modeling for a painting. Now though. Now I was _hugging Peeta._ Skin was touching skin, and everything felt immediately more intimate. I felt my breasts pushed against his chest, my nipples slightly hard by either the touch or maybe just by being exposed. Skin touching skin. I quickly untangled myself from him and stepped away, going to my chair and throwing my bra and shirt on again. I was blushing still when I turned back to him, and he was as well. I felt an old part of me emerge for the moment, and the need to run out overcame me. "It's getting late. I should go."

A flash of disappointment came across his face, but he nodded. I went up to him, and tried to quiet my need to get out a bit as I hugged him again. "Thank you," I said again, into the crook of his neck, and he tightened the squeeze. I let go and stepped back. I wanted to kiss his cheek, or maybe his jaw, or his lips. I wanted to stay and sleep here, in his bed with him. I wanted to wake up with him holding me. But I couldn't. So I just nodded, and started to walk out of the room. "I'll see you for breakfast," He said to me, and I nodded again. My brain was working too fast and too much. I couldn't follow it, but I tried to push all thoughts of Peeta out of it as I left his house and entered back into my own. The difference between my house and his was almost unsettling. Peeta's was warm, friendly, and inviting. It felt like a true home at moments as well. Mine was cold and dead, a true ghost. It was haunted by memories, which soured it. I shook my head, but knew what I had to do.

The thought ran through my head the moment I stepped into the house. I went up the stairs and opened the door of Prim's room. I swallowed, looking at it in it's slightly disturbed space, and then exhaled loudly. I shut the door, locking myself in. I had done this before, many times actually. But I was not here to lay on her bed and cry, unmoving. I moved a basket that she had in her room in front of the door, and started off by taking the doll that Jear was playing with and put it in the basket. Prim would not want me to hold on to these things. She would want me to give it to those that didn't have toys. What I should have done on my birthday was let Jear play with the doll, and choose whichever she wanted to go home with. What I did was force them out. I needed to right that. _Ashes to ashes,_ I told myself.


	10. x. rubble

The night was long. Longer than any hours could count, or years. My hands ran over Prim's things. I found Buttercup in the corner, and he started mewling at me. I didn't know whether I wanted to kick him or hold him tightly, so I just walked away from him. I almost lost my strength every two minutes. I had to just give myself orders and yell at myself within my head. Get up. Iron this shirt. Throw a toy in the basket. Fold the sheets into a pile. Throw a toy in the basket. Collapse on the stale empty bed and fall apart. Get up. Throw a book in the hallway to keep. Throw a toy in the basket. Wash a blanket until the sweet smell of Prim (like a beach in Four, where she'd never been to, mixed with the herbs she worked with in healing) was gone. Hang up the blanket to dry, so as to have another thing to curl into against the nightmares. Throw a toy in the basket. Walk into bedroom and open window. Walk back into Prim's room and open window. Collapse on the stale bed. Get up. Throw a toy in the basket.

By the time the sun was up, my tears were done, and gone. I put the basket of toys outside of the room door, and took a once over of the room. Everything was stacked, as if ready for someone to come through and take it all and leave. I fell back on the stupid mattress, and wished I didn't take the sheets off. I wanted to wrap myself up in everything I could and never move again.

When I heard a crash downstairs I came back to reality. I looked around confused, taking in my surroundings. I was in Prim's room, I was packing everything away. What was the noise, who was here? _I don't care, who cares. I just want to lay down again..._

But then I heard a sort of strangled scream, and found myself on my feet and running down the stairs. I found Peeta in my kitchen, pots all on the floor and his hands upon a drawer of silverware. I quickly made my way over to him and shut the drawer, trying not to stare at the knives like he was doing. I nudged my body in between Peeta and the counter, and he shook. "Go away, go away, go away," He mumbled, as if a sort of mantra, his hands back on the counter behind me and I was stuck in the middle of them. I sat on the counter to give myself some extra height, and brought Peeta's forehead to mine like I did last time. "Peeta," I whispered, and he closed his eyes. I repeated his name as my fingers played in his hair. His hands were balled on either side of me, and my legs rested on either side of him. I hummed the Valley Song again, and wondered if singing it would help more.

I could feel it the moment he came back to me. As if I could feel the bad blood being drained from his body. His hands unclenched, and he blinked, looking at me confused as to how we got so close. His eyes flickered to all the pots on the floor, and he hung his head in shame. I brought him closer to me, and enveloped him in a hug for a bit as he just stood there, feeding on my warmth. I was alright with that, more than alright. There had been so many times in the past that I've done the same thing, I understood the need for this. He pulled away eventually, and the two of us cleaned up the mess. "Let's both make breakfast today," I said lightly, and we got to work.

We ate in silence. I looked out the window as I cleaned our dishes, and took a deep breath. The sun was out. "I'm going to go into town today," I told him and turned to see him.

"I have some bread to deliver. We can go in together."

I considered telling him no. I had all intentions at going at this alone. But I thought of Prim, and how her face fell every time I pushed myself away from anyone and everyone. It'd be a spit on her grave if I continued to disappoint her. "Alright, let me dress and get ready."

In a half hour, Peeta was back in my house and I came down the stairs with the basket in my hand and a jacket on. Peeta had a bag of bread. I had a blanket on top of everything in the basket, hiding its contents, and although I saw Peeta look at it curiously he didn't ask.

We made our way into town. We avoided some streets purposefully, not feeling the ability to see them. Peeta stopped by some houses on the way giving bread, and I stood at the edge, never walking up to the door with him. He struck up conversation easily with the people. Our talk was light and nonsensical; I didn't even really pay attention to what we were saying. We stayed away from everything we actually needed to talk about. We were in public, surrounded by people. Some people turned to stare at us, and I wondered what they thought. I wondered if they still believed everything from the Capitol, and thought that we were married, or even engaged. I clutched my jacket around me tighter.

When Greasy Sae's place finally came into view, I turned to Peeta. "If you have other things to do it's alright..." I lingered off on the words. I didn't know if my want for his company and to be with me was more strong than my desire to not have to make anyone else but myself deal with this.

He grabbed my hand and smiled. "I made her some bread, have to go in as well. Let's go."

I sighed and nodded, letting him semi drag me to the door. Although the distinction between the Seam and the Merchant side of town no longer existed, Greasy Sae still chose to live where the Seam once laid. Her house was modest, but at least it wasn't falling apart. It was one of the first houses done, most other places were still being rebuilt. Her front door was opened, and the main room was a sitting place. Graesy Sae was serving several that were seated at a sort of bar some stew.

Peeta and I sat down, and he right away handed her a loaf of bread that she thanked him for. She turned to me and said hello with a smile. I returned the pleasantries, and then went right into why I came for fear that I'd run off if I didn't just start talking. "I came to apologize."

"You don't need to apologize, Katniss. I understand–"

"No, but that's why I have to apologize. I keep hurting the people that do in fact understand, the people that deserve much better treatment." I glanced quickly over to Peeta as I said this, and saw him looking at me. I turned back to Greasy Sae. "I wanted to say I'm sorry for what I did to you and Jear. It's hard, and I know you know that, but that's not an excuse. I," I picked the basket up and I took the blanket off of basket and showed Greasy all of Prim's old toys that I brought with me. "I brought this here. I'm cleaning out her room. Having it sit there as if waiting for her to come back isn't what I should be doing. Jear needs these toys. I want her to have them. Prim would want her to have them too." I left things unsaid, but I think she understood. I couldn't hold onto these things and cling to the ghost of Prim. I couldn't let myself go off and die with her. I couldn't become my mother, a shell of grief and death. I thought guiltily to how I've been acting, and realized that I did. I became everything I promised myself I wouldn't be. My mind tried to protest it all. _I didn't have a family to care for at least._ That wasn't a good excuse, there were still people I needed to care for. Greasy Sae and Jear. Haymitch. Peeta.

I stood up, not giving her a chance to give me back the basket. "This isn't enough to be a thank you for everything you've done for me, but it's the least I could do. You made sure I ate and held myself together before and after long nights. I'm not okay, but I'm getting there. And I think I'll be fine with making my own food from now on." I saw as Greasy Sae's eyes flickered to Peeta, where he stood by my side. He inched closer to me, our hands brushed up against each other. I wondered whether he moved unconsciously, or did it to show Greasy Sae that he'd be by my side to make sure I was doing okay.

"Alright. If you say so." She smiled, showing her old, yellowed teeth. "Stop by, the both of you, so that I still can see you, yeah?" We nodded, and she took the basket of toys off the counter. She waved us off and we left.

When I stepped outside, I took a deep breath. I felt Peeta snake his arm around my waist, leaving a flurry of goosebumps on my skin where he touched it. "You okay?" He asked, and I turned to him to see him looking at me worried.

"Yeah. Or eventually maybe. I don't know." I looked forward. "It's not going to ever get easier, is it?"

"Eventually. Maybe." We stood silent for a bit, and his arm fell away from me. "Come on."

We walked down the road at a slow pace, looking around at the town. Everyone was rather hard at work for rebuilding. It was weird to see no actual boundary between the Seam and the Merchants, but I could feel it. As we crossed into the Merchant's side, I had to fight back an unease. It wasn't like that anymore. The war evened everything out. Everyone lost everything. Everyone was rebuilding. As if to prove my point, a group of people – both dark haired and blonde – walked past us with large pieces of wood upon their shoulders.

I turned to Peeta, and realized that he slowed down, his eyes at something nearby and trained on it. I turned to see where he was looking, to be welcomed by the Mellark bakery. Or rather, what used to be the bakery. A couple of beams still stood slightly, but everything was charred and destroyed. "Peeta," I called to him and stood by his side, my hand finding his. He didn't turn away from the ruins though, but he started walking again. I didn't know what to say, but I figured that maybe right now the best thing to do would be not to talk. I squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back, and we continued not to talk. His eyes stayed glued to where his family's bakery used to stand.

He stopped when we were right across the street from it. I wondered if this was the first time he was looking at the ruins of the place, and thought it most likely. I couldn't see him seeking this out. But did we happen upon this? Or did he have every intent to face this today when he asked me if he wanted us to go into the town together?

There was a bench carved of rock behind us that I moved us to to sit down upon. He followed my lead, and we sat in continued silence, eyes never leaving the mess across the street. I stayed holding his hand, and his grip on mine was so tight that his knuckles were white. We sat as still as the stone beneath us. Peeta's arm – and entire body, really – was tense. The veins in his arms were more visible than usual, and his eyes were strained and dark. Would he have another episode? Was he in the middle of horrid thoughts now? I tried to not think of it and just concentrated on our hands clasped together, our shoulders touching. Tentatively, I brought my other hand and rested it on his arm. I was slightly wary what another touch would do to him, but he didn't even seem to notice. I looked back up at him, and realized how far away he seemed to be. His hand in mine felt cold, and everything about him lacked the warmth and glow that has always been Peeta. It scared me, and I almost wanted to slap him for being like this, but I sat there, as still as him. I was being selfish. Everyone has their moments of cold. I couldn't expect him to always be strong.

But this seemed different. I wanted him to look at the bakery and break down in tears. I'd hold him and rub his back and we'd go to one of our homes and I could make him tea. I'd comfort him like he always felt like he had to do with me, and maybe even we'd fall asleep with my arms around him. But this was not what was at my side. I had a hunk of flesh existing next to me. Looking without seeing upon the house that he lived and grew up in.

When the sun started to set, I stood up and tugged on his hand. He turned away from the rubble that used to be the bakery and let me lead him back to our houses. I kept looking at him, waiting to see if tears would fall that I could catch and try to stop. But there was nothing. I've seen this look before and that scared me; I've seen it when I looked in the mirror.

He took his hand away from mine the moment we got near his door. I shook my hand and knew I'd probably have a bruise somewhere upon it from how hard he was holding it. He went inside without another word, and I heard the door lock. Haymitch was outside with his geese, and he tried to yell something in my direction, but I didn't take it in as I went into my own home. I didn't lock the door, and instantly looked out my window towards Peeta's house, to see if I could catch his silhouette moving anywhere or anything. He never even turned the lights on. I made myself a dinner I could barely even taste and spent the night in and out of nightmares. Every time I woke up, I'd look out to Peeta's house. Still dark, but I knew he wasn't asleep.

The next morning when I woke up, I made extra breakfast and placed a wrapped up plate of it on Peeta's front step. His door was still locked. I went into the town and was happy when I saw a group of workers hunched over plans nearby where the bakery used to be. When they went to work on the building, I went to work with them as well. I was going to do everything I could to make sure another bakery with the name Mellark was in District 12 again.


	11. xi. reconstruction

I let myself be lost within my work. I wondered, fleetingly for a moment, if this is how it was for Peeta: whatever in front of you is the only thing that exists. With him it was his baking or his paints. I turned to the construction of the bakery.

I've never done construction, but I still was able to find jobs here and there to do. They were long days, and I'd take my lunch with Greasy Sae. She'd ask after him, after Peeta, and I'd try and change the topic. I didn't know what to say.

I hadn't seen Peeta since he locked his door on me. It had been a couple days. I've been worried sick but no, no I have not because I'm working on rebuilding the bakery, the bakery is all that exists. Greasy Sae can see my discomfort when she asks about him, but she still does. I wondered if everyone here in District 12 was born stubborn.

The sun started to set, and the reconstruction team started heading off in different directions. I didn't linger. Being in town was hard enough on me, the thought of actually interacting with the people I was working with seemed downright impossible. After all we've been through, they were still too soft, like lamb wool, and I was too sharp, like wolf claws, and there was too much blood on me. I made everyone uncomfortable at first I knew, especially after i took my sweatshirt off on the first day when I worked up a sweat. My scars gleaned in the sunlight and sweat. I didn't care, I had things to do and one of them was not pay attention to how my scars made people feel, and the only reason I noticed was because I'd catch people looking at them every now and then when they thought I couldn't see. People didn't know how to act towards me, but I didn't care. I had work to do, I didn't have the thought of the others around me on my mind ever. They stared at the scars, and I'm sure that the scars stared right back.

I guess that's what happens after you encounter a fire mutt and live to tell the tale (or rather, let the scars do the telling).

I gathered my things and made my way back to where no one else headed. My arms ached and my legs sang with discomfort, but I welcomed the feeling. I was always so tired when I got back that I only had enough energy for dinner and a couple other things until I passed out. Nightmares, they always came – strong and violent – but I tended to wake up much less when I tired myself out during the day. Which was both good and bad, I admit. I got fuller nights of sleep, my body needing it for the work that I was doing, still not feeling fully recovered from war (would it ever?). But I just was non-stop stuck in the nightmares then. There was no way out. Sometimes I knew they were nightmares and not real but I couldn't wake myself up or manipulate them or anything. The bed in the morning was always cold, and something deep within me hurt with that.

"Sweetheart," A voice called out over honks of geese and I groaned. I had been doing a good job avoiding Haymitch (I've been doing a good job recently of avoiding everyone, really), but he got me today. I looked over at his house and saw him sitting on his porch, the geese surrounding his front yard. I made my way over to him, knowing if I just ignored him he'd wait until later when he was more drunk and come barreling into my house. He was drinking, but not Haymitch-drunk yet.

When I got to his porch, the two of us just looked at each other. I wanted him to tell me whatever great insight he had through his drunken stupor, but he sat there silently with his eyebrows raised, taking another drink. I was tired, and this man easily brought out the anger in me. "Spit it out Haymitch, or I'm going to let the geese get into your liquor cabinet." My words tried to form a joke, but the tone stayed flat and dead. I guess I'd have to work on that.

He smirked, like he always did when he got under my skin. "How's Peeta?"

I suppressed a growl. Was everyone going to ask me the same goddamn question today? "I'm not his keeper, Haymitch. Get off your ass and ask him yourself." I turned to leave but he called out another "sweetheart." I shook my head and kept walking. Whatever, I guess I'd lock my door this evening, just to keep a drunken Haymitch out of my house.

When I got into the house, I put the water to boil so I could drink tea while I made dinner. As I made up the plates with some wild turkey I shot earlier and garlic roasted potatoes, I wondered if I should make a plate still for Haymitch like I sometimes did. I scoffed though, got angry at just before, and settled on two plates. When the food was ready, I sat down at my place at the kitchen table, and ate surrounded by silence. The past couple of days where I've been working hard and keeping my mind off of anything and everything, dinner was where my mind came back to me. It was the silence, the stillness, and how much I hated it. I looked up fleetingly at the other plate I prepared, but then looked back down at my plate and forced food into my stomach. It's been a couple days only but at dinner I can admit to myself that I am in fact worried about Peeta and allow myself to think about it. I tried not to let my head sink along with the sinking feeling of my stomach as I thought about Peeta. I hated that Haymitch asked me about him today, because it made me worry about him even more, which I didn't even realize was possible.

How was Peeta, really? Horrible, no doubt. I would be too, if I didn't let myself lose myself in the construction. But the hours that I'm not working I am the mess that I am. I didn't expect it to feel so good, helping rebuild, but it probably had more to do with the fact that I was rebuilding the bakery, Peeta's bakery, than the actual labor. And it wasn't like painting or baking was to Peeta, where it helped him with his mind and helped calm everything afterwards. The only time where I felt alright was when I was in the middle of working and doing. The moment I stopped, the moment I started to walk home and felt the sun beating down it's last rays of the day, everything went back to how it really is with me. My dinners are lonesome and I find my tears through them. The nights are cold and lonesome and the nightmares wrap around me. Nothing is right at all, but I can lie to myself easier in the daylight as I did something to help Peeta that it is.

I only ate half of what was on my plate when I couldn't eat anymore. I washed my plate and put on a sweater. I picked up the second plate I made, and made my way towards Peeta's. Like every night, I tried the front door, but it was still locked. I scowled at that as I made my way to the kitchen window, the way I had been entering his house for the past couple of days during his lock out. I didn't understand why he didn't just unlock his front door, he knew that I was here. The first night I came over here, I was afraid. What if he was having an episode, and he'd try to hurt me? I got over that quickly enough, and when I realized that he wasn't going to let me in via the front door, I used the kitchen window. I considered going upstairs, but was a coward and just left the food and ran. When I came back the next night, the plate was cleaned and there was a loaf of bread waiting for me.

Another routine for us to be picked up. I made dinner, I brought it to him, he ate it, cleaned the plate, and made me bread. He didn't come over for breakfast, he wouldn't show up for dinner. I wouldn't go upstairs. Only once when I was giving his food did I even hear him move upstairs. He probably somehow found out when I was over with the food, maybe he saw me from the window, because if he moved I knew I'd hear him and his unsteady, heavy feet.

I climbed through his kitchen window – he may have locked his front door but this window stayed unlocked night after night, I wasn't completely unwanted at least – and slid silently to stand in the middle of the room with the plate in my hand. I placed the food on counter and my hand moved to the loaf of bread, but I hesitated. I usually just took the bread and left to run back into my house, clouded and overtaken with things I couldn't even fathom putting words to, but I felt different tonight. In my head, I heard Haymitch asking me how Peeta was doing. I cursed under my breath, the damn bastard knew it'd get lodged in my head. Before I even realized it, I had my first foot on the step. I felt selfish as I made my way up the stairs; it took me days to decide to physically check if Peeta was okay. Well, of course he wasn't okay, none of us were. But I needed to check on him, needed to see how he was, needed to hear from him that he just wants me gone from his life because I can't think of anything else that could be the reason for why he withdrew from me for so long. It began because of his family, of course, but he also knew that I could help him, and he hadn't tried to ask me for help. I should have asked him, but I didn't want to push him. But I couldn't just make up excuses anymore. I had to make sure he was okay. I had to know what was going on, and why.

I stood in front of his bedroom door and put my ear to it. It seemed silent, but if I listened hard enough I could hear the scratching of a pencil. I composed myself, and knocked loudly. I tried to make my voice a command. "Peeta. Open up." At the sound of my voice, the pencil sound stopped completely. There was silence and I groaned in frustration. "Peeta I know you're in there, I heard your pencils. Open up!" There was silence for a couple more seconds, until I heard him start to scramble. It sounded as if he was throwing papers all around, and moving other things. After a bit, it went back again to silence. I counted in my mind to five, trying to not give in to anger. "Peeta if you don't open the door in three seconds I will knock it down and–"

He opened the door and stepped away quickly. "Peeta," I breathed, the anger was gone and I felt relief. I took in his appearance. He seemed tired and worn, but there didn't seem to be any tracker jacker hatred in them. I threw my arms around his waist and buried my head against his chest without thinking twice. He felt whole and warm and everything that I've missed in the past couple of days, that I couldn't help but just want to stand there all night and breathe him in and keep my mind blank. His arms went around me as well. After a bit, I pulled back and looked at him. There were heavy bags under his eyes, and I could only imagine the ones under mine. My fingers brushed against them quickly, and then I put my hand back down.

"Why?" I whispered after a while, not knowing how to word my question exactly. _Why did you shut me out? Why did we have to walk past the bakery? Why are you still making me bread? Why are we so goddamn lonely and stubborn?_

He shook his head. "Another night. Please? I'm tired."

"So am I," I replied, and we looked at each other for a bit longer. A question was on the tip of my tongue, and before I could think better of it, I asked it. "Can I sleep here tonight?"

He was silent, and there seemed to be a conflict in his mind. I was about to leave to go back home, when he nodded. I bit back a smile, and nodded back. "I'm going to eat, and wash up. Wear whatever of mine you want for sleepwear. You can have the bed." I nodded and went to wash my face as he went downstairs to eat the food I brought over for him. I thought of going down and joining him, but didn't want to push it. His mind was obviously in conflict over something, and I didn't want to push him to feel like he had to have a conversation with me. I allowed myself to take in his room after washing up and putting on one of his tshirts and sweatpants. Things were misplaced and stacked, a couple things ripped, but nothing seemed to out of place. I sighed in relief, that meant he didn't have a bad flashback recently, at least in his room. I pulled back the sheets of his unmade bed and laid on the right side, the side I'd usually sleep on whenever we slept in the same bed. I frowned for a bit, knowing that he'd go off and lay on the couch to sleep. I wanted him to sleep beside me. Even if he didn't hold me, I didn't care. Just the thought of a warm body, no, _his_ warm body near mine would make me feel better. I laid there, trying to keep my mind from the thoughts of anything that could come to a nightmare, when Peeta came back in and flashed me a quiet smile as he went into the bathroom to wash up and got ready for bed. I felt comfortable and sleepy as he came back into the room, and reached over to the pillow on the other side of the bed to take the pillow so he could sleep on the couch downstairs.

My hand grabbed at his arm. "Wait."

He turned to me, surprised. I was surprised too. I didn't mean to, but sleep was making me act and talk before I processed what it was. Half asleep, it pours out of me without me meaning for it to. "Stay with me."

He looks at me, a confused expression flashing through his face for just a second. I hated myself for saying those words, those three stupid words, but I did and they hung in the air. I was afraid of his answer, almost. _Always,_ I thought to myself. _Say always, dammit._ I don't know why it was so important to me, but it was.  
Peeta just nods, and laid down on the opposite side of the bed as I let my hand drop. "Alright."


	12. xii. remembrance

Although I was very tired, sleep didn't come to me right away. Peeta's soft and slow breathing came out through the night and gave me a comfort I haven't had in a long time. I felt good in this bed, his bed, in his house, and not surrounded by so many memories or the thoughts of people that used to sleep in rooms next door. I wasn't alone, but I couldn't get over the fact that I actually was. We were in the same bed, but he refused to hold me. I couldn't blame him of course, I couldn't expect him to. Everything was different. I knew that. I knew that things were different, different between us, different in him and me both. A part of me though, a bigger part than I wished to admit, ached at the thought of the barrier that is between us as we lied in the same bed. Peeta was all the way on his side of the bed, on his side pointed towards me, his hands drawn up close to himself. I stared up at the ceiling to try and just concentrate on his breathing and not on how much he drew into himself laying next to me. I wondered fleetingly if he would comfort me if I woke up screaming from a nightmare.

I shook that thought from my mind. It didn't matter, not today. The work I do in the town doesn't dull my nightmares, but rather my reaction to it all. I wouldn't wake up screaming in the middle of the night. I would dwell within it all, stuck in it, drawn down within it, not ever being able to escape until the morning called me out of my sleep. I sighed, and turned my body to face Peeta, my hand falling in between the distance of us. It was so close to him, almost touching, and I had to suppress a shudder that went through me that had nothing to do with the breeze from the opened window. I shut my eyes and tried to clear my mind from those thoughts, and any thoughts really.

It was a swirl of good and bad, blood reds and soft sunset reds clashing and mixing together. In the blood red, my dreams starred the dead, like always. When I was with them, everything screamed. Everything had a voice (they used it loudly), everything was alive (just so that it could die), and everything accused (accused me, my fault; this was something that was true both sleeping and awake). They took the words that Mags and Finnick used in my dreams previously, "for you," and said it as they died staring me down. Their demise was different each time, and different from how it really happened, and I didn't know if that was better or worse. It was on a stage, the stage in the Capitol, and everything was being recorded. I sat in the audience, right in front; I was their judge and they looked at me for approval for their death. _Was this enough? Was this worth it? Were my screams loud enough or should the next person try to scream louder?_ I was to judge it all. There was no one else in the room, but I still heard cheers and amused laughter accompany each death. A laugh track. Everyone that was recorded on it was probably dead. I watched the dead with the sound of the dead laughing, and I wondered what sick joke it was that I was still fucking breathing. But there was the soft sunset reds still, and suddenly Peeta was standing beside me, pulling at my hand.

"We have to go. Come on," He tugged urgently but wouldn't look at my face.

"They're dying for me. I have to watch. I have to make it worth it. I can't go, Peeta, no–" I couldn't let them die with the empty laughter of the dead only. I had to be there. I had to witness it. I had to witness everything I did.

Peeta shook his head, and then finally turned to look at me. "They're already dead. Watching this will only make you go up on that stage yourself. Come on."

It seemed even in my dreams, Peeta was a voice of reasoning. I stood and as I did, the stage faded away. The laughter of the dead quieted into a soft rain that fell upon me. I noticed suddenly, that Peeta's hand was not in my own. I was sitting against a tree, and when I looked out in the rain, I saw the bakery. It was bigger than how it used to be, but kept a similar style. Warmth seemed to emanate from it all, and the smell of fresh bread hit my nose. The thought of where I just was, the stage, left completely as I inhaled it, and felt the hunger of a scared eleven year old Seam girl who just lost her father and was about to lose her family.

A racket started, and Peeta barreled out. I waited for the sound of his mother yelling at him, but only his laughter, his laughs alive and whole and well, filled the air. His scars weren't taken away in my dream state, and I found comfort in that. His hands held two loaves of bread, burnt to a crisp, that he started feeding to the pigs. He burnt them by accident, and laughed at his own mistake. My stomach lurched at the thought of those breads, but I turned away.

"Well?" I heard through the rain, and I turned to look at him. My look of surprise met his look of knowing. "Are you coming in?"

I woke with a start, but no screams. Then again, what I woke from wasn't fear, but just the distinct feeling to wake up and the surprise of everything in my mind. My mind was muddled with all the things that happened in my dreams, and I didn't know how to feel. My dreams showed me as everything I hate and fought against, the Capitol, forcing innocent deaths for benefit and amusement. And then my dreams took a memory and distorted it. A good memory, one that even still, after all this time, I cling to.

I forced my mind into the present, and saw that the sun just started its travels across the sky. Morning had come. My face was warm, and I didn't understand until I took in everything around me. I was in Peeta's bed. Peeta's hand was on my cheek, as if he wiped away tears that fell during that night. Which he probably did, and he probably fell asleep doing such. We were laying closer together as well. Not completely touching, not wrapped up in each other's arms, but both of our bodies didn't hug the edge of the bed like they did when we fell asleep. My hand was on his chest, as if during the night I needed to make sure of its steady heartbeat. I wondered if me unconsciously doing that is what made Peeta appear in my dreams.

And then I realized that it was the first night I didn't wake up crying, or full of bad thoughts. They started to seep in, slowly like molasses on a cold winter morning, but they weren't there when I first woke up. I closed my eyes and moved my body just an inch closer. I didn't want to get up, but I also didn't know how Peeta would react when he woke up. Would he care that I was touching him, and that he was touching me? Did he even realize that he did, or did he somehow, in his sleep, know that I was there and needed comfort? Would the feeling of my skin grate upon him with the anger of the Capitol and make him hate? I didn't know any of the answers, and I couldn't answer them. I could only wait, and react after Peeta woke up. I let his heartbeat fill my mind, and kept my eyes closed and self calm.

I could tell when he woke. It was like when we'd walk in the woods; his footsteps loud and alerting the world while mine were soft and shaped into the ground. He couldn't ever sneak in the woods, and he couldn't sneak waking up. When he woke he stilled and I could feel his hand tense where it laid upon my cheek. I willed myself not to tense up as well, and slowly I felt him relax again and even go to move a piece of hair off of my forehead. He sighed, heavily, as if something was on his mind, and got up to go to the bathroom. When the door shut I allowed myself to open my eyes and my lips were turned in a frown. I was going to open my eyes when I felt him move my hair, but that sigh stopped me. No, that would have been foolish of me. This was foolish of me. I heard the shower go on and I sat up. I should probably go. I shouldn't have stayed. I shouldn't be so foolish, and selfish. I needed to get some hunting in before I went into town. I had things to do, and I had to do them so I wouldn't think. I stood and was about to leave, when I stopped. I didn't want him to think I was mad at him, or that I was mad about sleeping in the same bed with him. I quickly went over to his desk and got a paper and a pencil. _Come to my house for dinner. 6:00._ I placed it where I slept, and left.

The day went past me in a whirl of hard work and sweat, and soon enough I was dragging my aching legs back to my house. I thought ahead, and how Haymitch intercepted me last time so I changed my route slightly so I'd walk through the backyard instead of the sidewalk. I went into my kitchen to start dinner, when I found my washed plate, a loaf of bread, and a note upon my counter, the same place I'd put Peeta's plate when I'd bring it over in the evenings. I picked up the paper and read. _I'll make dinner tonight. You come over at six._ I shook my head at the words. He probably was doing this for the fact that I made dinner and brought it to him every night even though he shut me out. I glanced at the clock, and saw I had around an hour. Alright, I at least have time to wash the soot that most likely would never leave the District. There was talk I overheard while working, that a rumor was spreading of giving all the Districts real names. I didn't listen more, and I knew that no matter what it'd always be District 12 to me. I decided on a shower, not wanting to sit in a tub of water that would quickly become dirtied with everything on my skin. It felt good to wash the sweat and soot, and even though warm water was not just a dream anymore, I made the water cold.

By the time I was showered and got dressed, it was almost six. I looked out and saw the dark clouds that were promising rain at some point, and grabbed a hooded sweater. I made my way to his house and stood in front of his door. Should I knock? Would the door even be unlocked? I pictured in my mind climbing through the kitchen window only to sprawl on top of whatever Peeta was cooking. I shook my head and tried the door. It opened, and smells of good food wafted through the air and enveloped me. "Peeta?"

"Dinner's almost ready," he called out from the kitchen as I shut the door. I made my way through and saw as he was putting the plates on the table. "Do you want anything to drink?" He asked, and I asked for some water.

Dinner passed with talk that danced far around what I really wanted to ask about and what Peeta didn't want to talk about. As we cleaned our plates, he had a question for me. "What have you been doing the past couple of days?"

I tried to hide my face to not give anything away. I didn't want him to know that I was working on the bakery, I didn't know how he'd react. Eventually I'd tell him, but for right now, I'd avoid it. I remembered how he shut down for days after staring at the place, and I didn't want to trigger anything. "Hunting every now and then," I started, casually. "Working in town with rebuilding."

He didn't expect that, and he turned to me to look with surprise. "Really?"

I shrugged and went back to washing our dishes. "It's something to do. It clears my mind." _It lets me help you even when you shut me out,_ I add in my head, but I didn't say it. "What about you?" I asked.

I picked up a blush on him as well as a hardened expression as he continued his duty of drying the plates. "I've stayed in. Er, thinking. Painting," He added quickly. "Baking."

Thinking. Did that mean flashbacks? Probably. "What have you been thinking about?" He stayed silent, his lip pulled into a straight thin line. Each second he stayed quiet, I felt more and more anger. Finally, I placed the plate I was cleaning down into the sink and turned to him. "Goddammit, Peeta stop shutting me out."

He placed the towel in his hand down and turned to look at me, surprised. I was surprised too, I didn't mean to lash out at him. But I was angry. And he was shutting me out. And it hurt. "Katniss, I'm not shutting you out." I looked at him in disbelief and he shook his head, looking out the window. "I'm just trying to figure out how to put everything in words. My mind is really jumbled and I don't know how to articulate everything, but I know that I need to, and I will."

I got worried a bit, at that. Peeta wasn't able to put his thoughts into words? That was my job. I was the one that struggled with how to voice something, instead just throwing myself headfirst into something. He was the one that could change the thought of a crowd with just a minute of talking. Was this something that I could blame on the Capitol, something else they took away from him? "It helps to talk it through," I said, and he snorted. I smiled at that, knowing that I was the last person to talk about how talking about problems is helpful. "Okay, I guess I'm not a star example of that school of thought. But what I mean is, Peeta, if you need to talk it through with someone, I will listen to you." My hand touched his arm lightly, and in an instant he grabbed the hand and started walking upstairs, dragging me along. "Come on," he said.

We were in his room, and I sat down at the edge of his bed as he started pacing with his eyebrows furrowed. I watched him for a bit, and then finally he stopped and pulled his desk chair to sit it in front of me. I raised my eyebrows in question. Finally, he took a breath and ran his hand through his hair. "I'm a mutt."

My eyebrows shot down and furrowed into a scowl. "No." I remember when I was so angry at him for what the Capitol did to him, when I said that he was one. But he wasn't, and it hurt to think that he has been locked up in his house for all of these days with these thoughts.

"Yeah I am Katniss."

"Why?"

He looked at me confused. "What?"

"Why do you think you're a mutt?"

He looked off and away from me. "The Capitol took me, and bent me to do their bidding. And I gave in. I did what they wanted of me. I let them change me. A mutt."

I looked at him, but he wouldn't turn back to me. "Fine. You're a mutt." He grimaced. "I'm a mutt too then."

He turned back to me at that. "What?"

"You're a mutt because the Capitol was able to make you do what they wanted to? So did I. I caved into that before you, even. I did it without being tortured and not having tracker jacker venom pumped through me. If you're a mutt, I'm a worse one."

He shook his head and then looked at me. "No. You're not a mutt."

"Fine. Then you're not one either." I shrugged. He looked slightly angry that I was fighting him on this and being stubborn, but I didn't care. I've placed blame on him before when it wasn't deserved, and I wouldn't let him place it on himself.

He shook his head again. "I've been painting a lot the past couple of days, and thinking. I'm trying to gain pieces of myself back, and sometimes it frustrates me when I can't. I need to, can you see that?" He looked at me desperately, his hands clinging onto my own.

Of course he needed to, needed that. Peeta was good. Always has been. He always will be, as long as he has a say in it. I thought of how I used to be, and there wasn't really anything of my old self I wished to have anymore. All I had was the need to survive. Well, I did. It was everyone else that I lost. I didn't want to be broken, of course, but there was nothing absolutely brilliant that I used to have or be that I missed. I didn't miss myself. I missed my friends and family. I missed Prim. I missed– I stopped my train of thought, and brought my mind back to the conversation. "Peeta, you're still you. There are sometimes when I can't even believe that you went through everything you did because you have moments of absolute clarity."

He laughed a bit at that. "Yeah, I have moments. And I've also tried to kill you."

I looked right at him and squeezed his hands. "But you didn't."

"I've hurt you." His voice was small, and defeated.

"Peeta, I've hurt you too. You were tortured and hijacked," he winced at the word but I continued, "programmed to _kill_ me. And you fought against it. You didn't let them take you over, not completely. I've hurt you too, Peeta. I've changed from the Capitol too. That doesn't mean you're not Peeta anymore."

This conversation was obviously not going the way he planned. He looked frustrated that I wasn't letting him call himself names. I didn't care, I wouldn't allow it. He put his face down against our hands and laid it there for a bit. "I'm trying to remember pieces of myself, and I am. I'm trying..." He stopped himself. "I am," he corrected, but then paused again. He let go of my hands and stood up, not looking at me. I brought my eyebrows down in confusion. What was so hard for him to say? "I'm remembering how I care about you," he finally got out. I felt myself still. "I'm remembering how I feel about you."

A blush began to play upon my skin, and my mind went back to all that time ago, to a different lifetime, when Peeta was on stage and told Caesar that he had a crush for his whole life on a girl he was expected to kill. Peeta still cared? He remembered his feelings? I didn't know how to react. Back, before the war, I never could deserve him I knew (and so did Haymitch). But now? Peeta may be different, and a bit broken, but I still couldn't be enough for him. I wasn't even enough for myself. And I was confused. He confused me. I remembered all the times in the past couple of weeks I had the urge to kiss him but didn't allow myself.

He finally turned to look at me, his face guarded. "You're remembering how you feel about me," I questioned, and he nodded. "Your feelings for me." He nodded again. "When you loved me." I stuttered over the word, the stupid five letter word, not understanding. How could he even try and want to remember this part of himself?

"Yes," he said aloud. "I love you," it sounded automatic and he said it under his breath, as if they were words he has all the time and often. _They were,_ I told myself. _At one point. They were before I became what I am._ I wondered if he'd try to hold onto his love for me if I just died at the end, instead of just surviving like I was now, as a scarred up broken frail mass that existed in the most basic sense. He probably would, but he probably would also be able to move on, and make a new life. There was nothing good coming out of me still being alive, and this solidified it.

I took a breath I didn't realize that I was holding. "So that's what you've been thinking about these past couple of days." Every question of mine came out more like a statement.

He nodded. "Well it didn't start with that. I had an episode when I got back into my house after seeing the bakery, or rather lack of it. It was a bad one. What got me out of it were memories of you, untouched by the Capitol." He blushed a bit, but didn't look at me. He was looking at the wall, concentrating. "That helped. So I tried writing down memories that I had of you. A couple of hijacked ones got through, and when they did, I'd rip it out and burn the page and start over. I," He paused and went to his desk and took a sketchbook from in the middle of his pile of sketchbooks. He handed it to me, and I looked down at it in my hands, which were trembling. I opened up a page and heard myself gasp. All over the entire page were three words written over and over again. "I love Katniss".

If I was told a couple of years ago that a boy had filled up pieces of paper that declared their love for me, I would have laughed in their face. Now all I wanted to do was cry.

"I told you before, a long time ago. I didn't want to be a piece of their games." He laughed. "That was stupid of me. We were always a piece of our games, or they wanted us to be. So they loved our love story, and they wanted us to fall more in love." _They wanted me to grow a goddamn heart,_ I thought to myself. "They wanted us to die for each other. When death didn't come for either of us, they wanted me to stop loving you." He paused, and looked right at me. "I never wanted to be a piece in their games, but I became one. But not anymore. I'm not a piece of their games anymore, Katniss."

It felt hard to breathe. I didn't know what to feel about this and I suddenly felt like I was a little kid, and my mind spun. "I'm not telling you this and waiting for you to respond saying that you feel the same way." Peeta continued, and I finally looked up at him. "I just needed you to know."

"I need to think," I said quickly, and like the coward I am, I ran out of his house and into my own, locking the door. It was raining now, and I was soaked. The moment I shut the door, I cursed aloud at myself. I spent an hour trying to calm myself down. _He doesn't really love you,_ I'd tell myself. _He's trying to make himself feel that way just to get back at the Capitol. He can't really love you, you're the worst thing to happen to him. You're the reason his family is dead and he had to see the bakery destroyed. You're the reason he was taken, he was hijacked. You're the reason they pumped tracker jacker venom into him. You're the reason he was ready to die in the first games, the reason he got beat by his mother to give you the bread. Every bad thing that happened in his life came down to you._

It made me feel worse about myself, but better about everything. I couldn't let Peeta love me, not anymore. I could make sure he was alright and care, but I couldn't let him do the same for me. My mind was against me with it all, and went back to on my birthday in the woods. He wanted to hold me. I wanted to kiss him. I missed him, but I couldn't let myself do so. I still was leaning against my front door, and I crumpled on the ground. No, I tried to tell myself, but it sounded so weak. I couldn't want to kiss him. I couldn't want him to hold me or hold my hand or anything. Growing back with him, it was a mistake. I couldn't take it. Because I wasn't enough, and not what would be good in his life. And he should leave, and find a good life. And if I let myself any closer, I'd be destroyed. I shook my head at that. No, I was already in too deep, and always was. It'd kill me regardless if he left. Could it be the same with him? Could the thought of me leaving be shattering to him? How many times can I break him until he couldn't be put back together? I choked back a sob.

I made a rather big mess of the night, running off. Peeta made a rather big mess of the night too though I guess, by trying to love me again. Love. I breathed deep. It was a weighty word, and Peeta used it so much. Was able to. Because he was good, so good, and always good. Always Peeta. Every single person that I let myself love, in any way, died or left. I have Peeta and Haymitch, and yes they were my family and I loved them, but I couldn't. Couldn't like that.

I threw that word out of my mind. I needed to stop thinking about it, and fast. What did I want to do, right at that moment. What did I want to do? I wanted to kiss Peeta. I let myself think that, imagine it. The last time I did was in the Capitol, to make him stay with us and not succumb to the venom and get killed. I wanted to kiss him, and not because of the cameras, and not because one of our lives depended on it. I wanted to kiss him because he was Peeta, and his lips knew mine, even after all this time. But could I? After what he told me tonight, could I? I shook that from my head, and opened my front door.

It was full blown storming now, and I walked into the part of the yard in between our two houses. His bedroom light was still on, and his window was even still open despite the storm. I wondered if he locked his door after I walked out on him, and didn't want to try. I wanted to get into his room, where he was. There was a tree near enough to his window, so I started to climb it. This was mad, stupid and foolish, but so was his idea to try and have feelings for me again. I just needed to know. I just needed to kiss him, and do it now. As I climbed the tree, I heard thunder. My mind went back to the Quell (tick tock), and I thought how humorous it'd be if lightning decided to strike the tree that I was halfway up. I tried to shake the thought from my mind, because thoughts of the Quell would only bring forth thoughts of ghosts and I wouldn't let this time be about ghosts. As I made my way out on the strongest branch I could go on that'd bring me to Peeta's window, I thought of Rue jumping from tree to tree. I sent the thought back again as the rain started to beat harder. I looked into his room and saw that he was at his desk, turned away from the window I was now perched close to. I took a deep breath. It wasn't a question, I knew at that moment. I was completely mad.

Thunder boomed again when I jumped into the window. I made it through like I knew I would, and rolled on the ground for a landing. I wasn't entirely graceful though, and ended up sitting instead of standing, my limbs spread out. Peeta whipped his head around in confusion at the noise I made, and stared even more at me when he saw me. I was probably quite the looker right now. Sprawled out sitting down on his floor, rained out like a drowned rat and random branches in my hair.

"Katniss?" He asked.

I got up quickly and made my way over to him. It wasn't the time for words, he had that before. It was my turn, and I was always about what I did, not what I said. I brought my hand gently up to his lips and hovered my fingertips just inches away from them. I could feel Peeta's eyes upon me, questioning what I was doing, but I looked only at his lips. I couldn't hesitate. I needed to do this, needed to know. And so I did. In one movement I brought my lips upon his.


	13. xiii. mouths

I have kissed Peeta many times, real or not real? Real. Peeta has kissed me even more. Real, very real. I wasn't a good kisser, most likely, but I knew how to kiss Peeta. This kiss though made all other kisses fade. Did we ever really kiss? Was this our first one? It had to be. All kisses before it were there as practice, to build up to this one right now. I didn't know what was different, but it was. Maybe it was the fact that no one would ever be able to turn on the television and see a replay of it. Maybe it was because I truly initiated it, my rain soaked fingers finding purchase in his blond hair. Maybe it was because neither of us were about to die, and it was a kiss just so that it could be a kiss, and nothing else. The storm raged on outside, and I felt a sort of storm rage within me as well. I kissed him, and he kissed me back. Even after everything, I had this still.

Peeta's hands were at my waist, holding, pulling me closer. His lips were against mine, hard, and I wondered if when we finally parted (would we?) they'd be swollen. I pushed forward, and soon found that I had him against a wall. I wanted to laugh in triumph, but instead focused on the feeling of the small curls of his hair at the edge of his neck and the feeling of holding his bottom lip in between my two. His lips were soft and he was warm. I pushed harder into him, and my tongue flicked at his lip. His mouth opened, mine as well in response, and his hands found my bare skin underneath my soaked shirt. Goosebumps flew through my skin where he touched but his hands were warm upon me. I wondered fleetingly, if he was drawing before I came into his room unannounced like this, if he had his fingers stained with charcoal, if he was leaving sweeps of the charcoal upon my skin where he touched.

His hands found my lower back, and I gasped a bit in surprise. I put my mind back to the task at hand, and cupped his face with my one hand while the other was still buried in his hair. He needed a haircut, I realized, but moved that out of my head. I almost felt dizzy but I wasn't, almost felt lightheaded but was present in the situation. I was aware of everything around me, everything that was Peeta. I thought to back to how I used to every now and then felt a hunger when I kissed Peeta, one that felt like it'd never stop. That was foolish. This was not a hunger, this was a storm that raged more than the one outside, and one that couldn't be stopped

But it did stop. Peeta's hands found my wrists and he pulled me away for a bit. I opened my eyes and we stared at each other, grey finding blue in the dimly lit room. Our breath was short and we both leaned against each other panting. I didn't feel like myself, I felt like someone new. And I think I liked it, I liked feeling like this, overall just _feeling._ "Katniss." Peeta's voice was low and I wanted to kiss him again, to feel again and to hold him against me. He said my name again and I looked up to his eyes, not realizing that my eyes wandered to stare at his lips.

"What?" My voice was a whisper and low too, and maybe I should have blushed at it but I couldn't find it in me to.

"Why are you kissing me?" I looked and saw he was confused, and his eyes seemed to threaten to darken. Were they like that out of desire? Or was I pulling him into an episode?

I stepped a bit away from him, but his hands were still on my wrists and he clenched them and pulled me close to him again. "Do you not want me to?" I asked in a small voice, not looking up at him.

He chuckled, and I turned to look at him again. His eyes seemed light and there was a smirk on him, and I felt relief. He wasn't about to have an episode, at least yet. "I want to know why you're kissing me."

I scowled at him then. "Because I want to."

He brought a scowl to his face as well. He was trying to keep it playful, but I could see that there was a darkness trying to invade. He let go of my wrists though, and I rubbed them hoping that they'd not bruise. Peeta pushed off the wall a bit and away from me. "Katniss I just told you that I loved you and then you decide to jump into my window and kiss me. I need time to sort my head out, and so do you." He turned to look at me. "Just take some time to think about everything before you react for once, please? We don't need to kiss for cameras or anything anymore, and so every time you kiss me and don't mean it it's going to hurt. So just...think before you try and do that, alright?"

I shook my head. "I don't regret it. And I _did_ think about it. I told you, I needed to think, and I did. I came up with the fact that I wanted to kiss you." I felt awkward talking about this. When was the last time I had to talk about something like this, about wanting to kiss someone? Never, right. Sure, I've felt it before, felt it a couple of times with Peeta, but I never had to voice it. I felt rather foolish having to put it in words, and wished he'd shut up and not want to talk about this all and just kiss me again.

"Well maybe you should have spent more time thinking about it." His voice was getting more cutting.

I fought a bit of anger. I understood where he was coming from, and how it was my fault. I haven't been the most thoughtful of his feelings in the past, truth be told. I fought the anger, but it was more anger towards myself, and how I've put a doubt in him. It was an anger towards the Capitol. I let myself think fleetingly about how this would all be if he was never hijacked, if he was rescued from the Capitol with mental and emotional bruises and scars, but his hands were able to wrap around me instead of my throat. _No_ , I told myself. _That is a dangerous path to think down._ "I _have_ thought about it, Peeta! I've wanted to kiss you for a while."

He cocked his head at me. "Really?"

I blushed. Finally, after everything of the night a blush formed upon me. Why did he need to talk about this? "There were a couple of times that I've wanted to kiss you, but I fought against it," I mumbled and looked away.

"Like when?"

I looked up and saw that he had a goofy smile on. I huffed. I didn't want to talk about this at all, and he knew it. "I don't know, a couple of times. In the forest on my birthday. I don't know, Peeta."

He looked as if he was going to step closer to me, but then his smile fell and he turned a bit away from me and sighed. "Well it's getting late. Are you staying over?"

Thunder boomed right as he asked that, as if to remind me of the pouring rain. I wanted to go back to my house and lay under my sheets in embarrassment, really. I don't know what I exactly expected to happen with the resolution that I wanted to kiss him, but talking wasn't on my agenda. I didn't want to face the rain or the storm though. So I nodded. "Yes. Let me borrow sleeping clothes." I wanted to regain some power, and demanded that a bit from him.

But he just shook his head with a smile back on and went to his dresser, handing me a pair of shorts and a tshirt. I went to the bathroom to wash up and change, and when I was back Peeta was already laying in bed. He was just in his boxers, probably on purpose. Probably trying to see if even though I climbed up a tree and jumped into his room to kiss him, if I'd say something about his almost nudity. I wanted to scoff, but held it in. I wouldn't let myself react.

I laid on my side of the bed and went under the covers. And then I thought about that. _My_ side? When did it become my side of the bed? I tried to change it in my mind. I laid on the other side of the bed than Peeta. But this was the side I always slept on, no matter what bed we were on, honestly. I was overthinking things, and should probably just try to sleep.

We were on opposite sides again and as far apart as possible. Peeta made sure of that. I held in a growl. No, we were going to sleep on my terms. And I wanted to be close, to feel the warmth from his body and wake up and have his arms around me solidifying the fact that I was in fact just dreaming whatever nightmare came to my mind. Peeta's eyes were closed, so I moved closer to him quietly and wrapped my arms around his stomach. His hands were against his chest, so I put my head against them and shut my eyes. I could feel him tense slightly as he opened his eyes and looked down at me. "Katniss..." His voice sounded a bit strained, but he didn't look like he was close to a flashback.

"Don't worry Peeta, I thought long and hard about this," I said, mocking. A pause, and then he chuckled and I could feel his breath against my hair. His hands unwound from his chest and found their way around me. I pressed my face against his chest and suppressed a smile over my victory.

I fell asleep quick enough, apparently exhausted over the night. It was a long night though. My talk with Peeta alone could have made me tired enough, what with my escapades afterwards truly tired me out. Nightmares came and swirled through me, but upon waking I couldn't remember anything really, just flickers of blood and ash. Peeta's arms were still around me and he was still asleep. The sun was coming up, and I needed to get started on my day. I tried to make my way out of his embrace without waking him, but I felt him tense and hold me hard against hisself when I started to fidget.

"Where are you going?" He asked, his voice graveled from sleep.

"I have to get ready and go into town," I told him, trying to pull away.

His eyes were still closed and I felt him smile against my hair. "No. Stay."

And I was so comfortable in bed and with Peeta that all I did really want to do was stay. But I couldn't. I had to go into town. I had to work on the bakery for Peeta. "No. I'm going."

"Not if I don't let you." His arms tightened. I was a bit caught off guard from it all. It had been really so long since Peeta had been this playful and happy. I wondered if the tracker jacker venom really was finally making it's way out of him. Not fully of course, I never would let myself expect that. But maybe, laying the cards out on the table like we did yesterday helped. Or maybe it was a coincidence. I didn't know, but I didn't have time to think it over just laying here.

I pushed away from him and finally got out of his grasp. "Peeta, I have to shower and get ready." I sat on his bed and he looked up at me. "I'll come over when I'm done and we can have dinner together, alright?"

He smiled and put his hand on my shoulder. "Alright," he whispered, putting pressure on my shoulder. Confused, I bent down and he placed a quick kiss on my forehead. I sat back up and looked at him with a cocked eyebrow. He laughed. "I'll see you later tonight, Katniss."

The day seemed to go by fast enough. I was able to have a clear mind while I worked and concentrated only on whatever was in front of me, the foundation going up rather smoothly. When I went to lunch at Greasy Sae's, I was actually able to give her a response when she asked about Peeta. I told her that he was doing well, and she looked at me surprised since I said something besides a mumbled indirect answer. She smiled at me, and told me to tell him to come by for lunch with me sometime. I told her I'd pass the invitation on, although I really wasn't sure if I would. Peeta still didn't know what I was doing in the town, and I wasn't sure how he'd take it yet. He still needed time, and taking him to Greasy Sae's would open up the questions of what I was doing.

My arms ached when I was going back home for the day. When I got to my house, I saw one of Haymitch's geese in my front yard eating my grass. I grumbled under my breath, and made my way over to the stupid creature to herd it back to Haymitch's. I wished that Buttercup could be trained like one of those dogs, and herd them. I almost started laughing to myself at the visual of that, but didn't as the goose almost bit me. "Watch it, you stupid goose," I muttered to it and started to get it to cross the street to Haymitch's. "You should be glad I don't shoot you and have you for dinner. You'd make an excellent main course you know."

"You're not going to be shooting any of my geese until I don't have any liquor to deal with their honkings. And when you do, I'm trusting Peeta to cook it and I'll be given the biggest portion." Haymitch was on his porch, and watched as I struggled with his goose.

I looked at him, angry. "Really? You're right there and just let me struggle with this feathered beast of yours and didn't help?"

He barked a laugh and took a drink from his liquor. "What, and miss out on the fun of watching you try to herd a goose like it was a sheep? You're really good at that, by the way. Maybe there's another hidden talent of yours." I shook my head and went to walk away. "How's the husband, sweetheart?"

That stopped me short. Husband? I turned to Haymitch. I think there was a permanent scowl on my face whenever I talked to him. "Dammit Haymitch, you of all people know that we didn't get married." He laughed again, and I got angrier and crossed my arms.

"Fine, what do you want me to tack on to him? Lover boy? Boyfriend? Fiance? You guys _were_ engaged, after all."

I wondered what Haymitch would do if I wasn't around for him to poke fun at. Probably drown himself in his liquor and be pecked to death by those stupid geese. It'd be worth it almost not to come out of my house to give him that fate. "We're just friends," I told him sternly. "Call him Peeta."

"Friends, huh? Friends that kiss and hold hands and sleep in the same bed?"

I felt myself blush and I stuttered. "How did you know that?"

He smiled triumphantly. "I was guessing. But you proved me right."

I turned from him and ignored all of his continued laughter. "Goodbye, Haymitch."

As I showered and dressed, Haymitch's words were stuck in my head. What was Peeta to me? I didn't know. I didn't want to tack anything onto it. We went through the Hunger Games twice, we went through a war, we went through too much. And here we were. So I decided I wouldn't try and put a name on it. We just were. After dressing and getting my hair in a braid, I looked out my window and was happy to see that Haymitch was nowhere to be found. Did he just go out there when he knew I was coming home? I wanted to get mad at him and how much he poked fun at me, but I couldn't find it in me after it all. The three of us only had each other, and if him reaching out would be getting on my nerves, I'd just have to deal with it. I made my way over to Peeta's quickly and let myself in. There was food being prepared in the kitchen, but it was empty. "Peeta?" I called out, and heard a crash from upstairs in response. I felt my body chill instantly. I almost felt comfortable with the lack of episodes that Peeta has had over the past day or so, that the fact that one was happening right now caught me off guard. No running though. I sighed and put on a determined face as I made my way upstairs.


	14. xiv. don't

He sat on the floor in the corner, his head pressed hard against his knees and his arms around them. His shirt was off, and I looked around his room to see if I could get any hints to what happened. There was a shirt laying on his bed, and another thrown to the side of the room that seemed a bit dirty. Did he come up here to change, only to get a flashback? I shook my head and walked over to him, wondering if he even realized that I was here. I crouched down to his level, and gently put my hands on his arms. I felt his muscles tighten. "Hey," I called quietly, and rubbed my hands up and down his arms, hoping to coax the tension out of them. He didn't move his head to look up at me, not that he needed to. He knew it was me. Who else would it be, really? "Peeta," I called to him again, wanting him to look at me. He didn't move his head still, although he was letting himself relax more. I continued to say his name, and brushed my hands through his hair a bit. I brought his forehead to my lips, and kissed. When I went to let go and move away though, I found that I couldn't move. I was confused, but then realized his arms had found a way around me, his knees were down, and his head was buried into the crook of my neck. And I realized that I was now straddling him, my legs on either side of his.

"Peeta," I said again, straining against trying to sound stern and fighting a laugh, as well as fighting my embarrassment at the position he forced the two of us in.

And he laughed. He laughed good and hard. I took his face in my hands and made him look at me. He seemed genuinely happy, no trace of a flashback on his face.

"You're fine?" I asked, surprised. He nodded and I scowled. "I should slap you for scaring me like that." Our heads were close together and I pulled away and stood up before something else could happen between us. He just laughed, and I held my hand out to help him stand up. He wouldn't admit it but I knew it'd be difficult with his leg. "Put on a shirt, and finish making our dinner now."

"Alright Katniss." He laughed again. He was in such a good mood that it really surprised me. Did I really find him on the floor clutching himself just before? I didn't question it right away though, and followed him down the stairs once he had his shirt on and into the kitchen. Dinner smelled wonderful, and he seemed relieved that in his time upstairs nothing burned. Soon enough everything was ready, and we prepared the table for the two of us. I got us waters, and we soon sat down to eat.

Curiosity took over eventually, and I had to ask. "So was that a flashback you were having when I came in?"

He paused slightly, but then went back to eating. "Yeah, but not a bad one at all. Just a quick one. It was nearly gone by the time I realized you were here. I went to change my shirt because I spilled some food on it, and something just split in my mind. But it's fine." He looked up and smiled at me. "You kissing my forehead sure helped."

I refused to let myself blush. No. Not from just a silly forehead kiss. Not after I jumped into his room to kiss him, really kiss him, deeply. He was trying to catch me and make me blush, but I would not. I sat up straighter and smiled. "I'm glad it helped."

We finished dinner with small talk, and did the dishes. After all of that was done, He turned to look at me. "So. What do you want to do?" Before I could respond though, I yawned. He laughed at me. "I'm guessing you're tired."

I nodded. "Yes. Let's just go to bed."

He cocked his eyebrow at me, and a smile threatened to come upon his lips. He really was in a good mood today, and was joking more than I could ever really remember. I enjoyed it, and the effect it seemed to have on me. My head seemed more clear, and thoughts didn't fall into guilt and fear as much as usual. I told myself to not get used to it, not to depend on it. For all I knew the feeling could be gone tomorrow. But that didn't mean I couldn't enjoy it now. Right? Right, I had to think this way. This was...a good way to think. And what I should be doing? I let a smile come through on my face and challenged the face that Peeta was giving me. "Oh, I see you're just inviting yourself to sleep over now?"

I started to the stairs. "Yes. I'm wearing your clothes to bed too."

"Again." I heard him following me up the stairs.

"Again."

I changed into his clothes and washed up, and then made my way to his bed. He was already lying down, and I stretched before I made my way under the covers. I laid close by him on my back, not touching, but close enough to feel body heat. I wondered if I should reach out again, and pull my arms around him. Before I could consider that, he moved in one swift movement. He positioned himself to hover over me, his face just several inches away.

"Peeta," I breathed out.

"Katniss." His voice was level and tone was normal. I cursed myself for being surprised.

"You need a haircut." I told him, trying to match his casual tone. I reached up and brought my hand through his hair.

"You told me that at dinner."

I didn't look at his smirk, and continued to play with his hair. He really was close, very close. Too close? I thought of how close our bodies were just yesterday, how the only thing between them were the cloths of our clothes. We were closer then... I mentally shook my head. "Well you need one." I tried not to pay attention to how his legs skimmed mine slightly, and how I could feel the prosthetic of his fake leg cool upon my own. I tried to not pay attention to his arms, which were slowly drawing patterns on my own. I stared at his hair, at my hands playing with his hair, and wouldn't look at his face, at his eyes that were staring right at me. I thought quickly, whether his eyes were looking into my own or if they were looking at my lips. I stopped that thought. I was getting antsy, and tried not show it. He was too close, and he knew it. He wanted to see how I'd react. Because I went out of my way (really out of my way) to kiss him last night, and now he was seeing what I'd do with him so close, his body almost pressed on mine...

"Are you going to kiss me?" I asked, my voice flat. I was getting angry at this, at his playful nature. _Either kiss me or let me sleep_.

He laughed and rolled back onto his side. "No."

I 'hmph'ed and turned on my side away from Peeta. Anger did come through me at that, and it took everything in me to not just throw myself over onto his side and have my lips on his. Did I even want to kiss him right now? I thought about it, and yes, I did. The feeling existed there, and it almost surprised me at how comfortably placed it was in my subconsciousness. As if it always existed there, and this want to kiss someone, no, to kiss _Peeta_ , was nothing new or to be surprised about. But it was new. This was not always there, and it didn't just always exist. It was new, and weird, and I had to not freak myself out over it.

I was failing miserably at that.

Peeta let out another chuckle, and soon I felt his hands on my waist. He scooted me over, and I found my body melding to fit right against his. His arms made their way around me, encasing me in warmth, and his hands found my own, our fingers knotting with one another. Just like that, and my anger disappeared. I felt calm, and well. Well. It's been a while since that, but I did. Gathering some of my courage I was surging with last night, I picked up his hand and left a quick kiss on one of his knuckles. His face was buried in my hair, and I could feel him smile as he formed a tender kiss against my neck. His breathing sent a current through me, but I tried not to think about that but instead about how absolutely comfortable I felt. I knew that I'd never be able to truly be whole, not ever again (had I ever been though?), but I felt as close I could ever hope to be with this broken boy of mine right at my side, filling in the spots where I was destroyed just like I've been doing for him.

"It's weird," I murmured in the pale moonlight that casted in from the open window, fighting off a sleep that threatened to overtake me.

"What is?" His words were against my skin, were alive and danced and goosebumps appeared.

"I don't know. This. Us. We're being humans."

He chuckled, his breath causing my hair to move atop my face. "Yes, it's weird that we finally have time to be humans, isn't it?"

My eyes were closed, my body begging to give in to slipping into a sleep. "It's nice," I got out, before I felt myself dragged under the silence of the night and fell asleep.

The sky was a light powder blue and clouds drifted lazily across the horizon. The pace was slow and that was fine, it didn't matter. It was a nice lazy day, and there was no need to rush. We laid in the meadow, my head against his chest and his arm around my shoulders and we looked up at the clouds.

"A rabbit," I said, pointing to a cloud that resembled one. Finding pictures in the clouds was something I used to do long ago, and it was nice to find a day to do so again, the grass high above ourselves and dandelions and wildflowers all around us.

His hand pointed to another cloud on the right. "That one looks like a loaf of bread."

"Every cloud looks like a loaf of bread, Peeta," I said, laughing. His laughter joined as well and soon we were up and running through the woods. Still laughing. The sun was bright and I held Peeta's hand, navigating expertly through the trees. And then, we were in front of the lake. His hand was still in mine and I went to tug him forward. There was still a laugh upon my lips, and I felt myself smiling hard. "Let's go swimming, come on."

I looked upon the surface of the water, and saw a slightly earthy hue to the water. That confused me, but I shrugged it off; it was probably just mud or clay from the ground. I tugged on Peeta's hand, but he didn't seem to want to move. "Fine, well I'm going," I told him, and let go of his hand as I stepped towards the waters edge. I closed my eyes and let my toes dip into the edge, bracing myself for the cold. But it wasn't cold. It felt almost warm.

I opened my eyes and looked at my feet. The earthy hue up closer seemed more a rustic dark color. Confused, I bent down and treaded my fingertips in the water. Up closer upon it, I smelt the rustic smell of it too. It almost was overpowering, and I almost felt like I could taste it. Could taste blood...

My mind reeled. The entire lake was made of blood. I was about to scream when something caught my eye. Something light was further out, and when I looked in the middle of it all, I saw a body just below the surface. It was bright, somehow almost glowing in the middle of the water ( _no, not water, blood_ ). My stomach threatened to heave. And then I saw the hair that was floating just above the surface. Blonde hair, in two braids with ribbons.

"Prim!" I screamed out, and found myself running into the water. I had to tell myself water, I couldn't think of how it was blood. How it wasn't cold but almost warm to my touch and heavy. It seemed alive around me, but I didn't think about it, couldn't think about it as I made my way to my little sister. Just a few feet away, she sunk lower from the surface and fire erupted where she was. I fell back a bit, going underneath the water ( _the blood, oh god the blood_ ), and struggled to get my head over the water.

"Prim!" She was gone. Below the surface and a flame to stop me from getting her. I turned to the edge. "Peeta!" I yelled out for him, my head going under water. He was at the water's edge, fear etched in his face. But the moment he touched the water, he collapsed into it. Sunk in, far, down, below, near where my sister was. My dead sister. And Peeta was going under as well. "Peeta!" I screamed out again, trying with all of my might to get to him. I had to. I couldn't lose him. I couldn't.

But I did. He was gone underneath the water, the blood, and I felt myself tire. I was a good swimmer but I didn't have any energy anymore. The fire from where my sister was didn't grow but it didn't burn out either. My head bobbed under a bit, and I felt myself start to choke on the water. On the blood. My mind thought fleetingly about whose blood it was. It didn't matter. Whoever it was probably died for me. My head went fully under and a fire started in my lungs. I always expected cold at the end, especially if one was drowning, but it was warm. Too warm. I opened my eyes and tried to see through the red. My limbs felt like they were cramping up and black dots erupted in my eyesight. A figure appeared in my line of sight, sinking lower and lower as I did as well. I tried to make it so I'd sink down near the same area as him, thinking the least I could do is be near him as we both died. But he drifted away. Even in death I could not have peace. "Peeta," I tried to call out, my entire mouth filling with the taste of copper. It was too warm, all around me felt constricting, and I closed my eyes hoping it would all end. I wondered what my last thoughts would be, but they came soon enough. The sound of Peeta's voice, soothing and calling out to me. _Katniss, Katniss, Katniss._ It was warm.

"Katniss!" My eyes opened suddenly from the difference of tone. Instead of red all around, there was dark night, highlights from the pale moon, and his eyes, bright blue shining and staring at me. I sucked in breath, cold, fresh air, but I still felt that I could taste the blood.

I started thrashing. "Katniss, calm down," I heard Peeta tell me but I couldn't listen. I was crying at that point, and he held his arms around me. Warm and constricting, and it felt like I was drowning in the blood again. I tried to keep moving, but soon enough gave up and just laid there. But I still could breathe, and the air was cold in my lungs. It was a wonderful feeling, and I just closed my eyes and tried to focus on me breathing, on the fact that I _was_ breathing and nothing around me was red. "Peeta," I said under my breath, reaching out for the body that was above me and holding me. My hands made their way up his arms and to his shoulders. I made my way to his hair, and then even his face. He was alive, in front of me, whole, not cold, not drowning in blood. Alive. He was alive, and I was alive and _it was just a nightmare Katniss get a grip_. It's been a while since I've woken up this disturbed by a dream. I tried to stop thinking about it all and I realized that I have been mumbling under my breath.

"Peeta," I repeated several times, running my hand down his arms and making sure they were there, and strong. They needed to be strong, _he_ needed to be strong. He stayed above me unmoving, staring at me intently and rubbing my own arms as well. "Peeta we were in the meadow and it was fine it was good, everything was so good. But then the lake. It was blood. And Prim. And I tried to save her I tried to but I couldn't. I never can, Peeta. I can never save her." I paused, my breath hitched and I brought my arms around and locked them behind his back and pulled him close to me. "You went to save me and started to drown. In blood. And I was drowning too and we were drowning and Prim, Prim was on fire, but we were drowning. But it wasn't cold, it was warm, and I couldn't reach you Peeta, _I couldn't reach you_."

I was crying again by the end of my mutterings and Peeta held my head strongly in between his two hands. He kissed my forehead and brought his own upon mine. "Katniss it was just a dream. You're fine. I'm fine." _Prim's not fine._ Rust tasted in my mouth. He drew circles on my temples and I gribbed his back tighter. "I'm not going to leave you, alright?"

"Don't," my voice cracked. It was high and I could feel the panic in it. I made sure to push our foreheads closer together. "Don't leave me."

"I won't. I can't." He chuckled, and I tried to focus on that sound instead of what was invading my mind. "You should realize this by now."

"I won't leave you either, Peeta." My voice was still high and cracking, but I looked right into his eyes as steady as I could. _Don't blush, don't look away._ And it really was true. I couldn't just leave him, not ever. He wasn't chuckling anymore, but staring at me intently, and he nodded. It'd be better if he didn't love me, if he could leave me. If he could just walk away from the mess that I was. But he couldn't and wouldn't. And I could not think up a way where I could actually leave him. I gripped him tighter, thinking of my dream and how it took him away from me. I needed to know that he was real, in front of me, not dead, not drowning in blood and me unable to get to him. I brought his head down to me and kissed him for the second time in two days. My lips were hard against him, and it wasn't passionate but rather desperate to be able to feel him, to truly feel that he was alive and here. I wrapped my legs around his waist and pushed down so that his body would be atop mine and not just hovering. It should have been uncomfortable, and maybe it was, but I didn't care because his weight on top of me meant he was real, alive, and here and so was I. My hands gripped his hair, gripped his neck, traveled down his arms. Our lips stayed connected, his hands in my hair that was down rather then in a braid.

He moved, so that both of us were on our sides and pulled away. I opened my eyes, and felt him brush a tear from one. I sighed, not realizing that I was crying again, and put my head against his chest. My legs were still wrapped around him, and my arms around his back to. I probably looked hilarious, clinging to him so desperately, but I didn't care. _Real,_ I told myself. _It's real, he's real._ It felt weird stealing his game of real or not real, but I seemed to have done so with that kiss. I placed my head right against his heart which was beating hard against his chest, against my cheek. _That was real. This was all real. Not my dream. Not any of that._

"Go back to sleep, Katniss," Peeta told me, kissing my forehead. I nodded, not trusting a voice to even exist for me to use anymore, and his arms around me tightened a bit. Peeta was able to fall asleep within a half hour, but I couldn't seem to. His heartbeat thrummed in my mind, and I was determined to hear it for as long as possible. If I went to sleep, I wouldn't hear it. It'd be gone, and who knows what else would be? I couldn't. I wouldn't. I counted his heart beat. Counting one, two, three...

I lost track of counting, but I forced my mind to just start over each time I lost it. I refused to let myself think of anything else. After hours, the sun started to rise. The thought of a new day, of going into town and seeing people, of doing things, threatened a panic attack to come over me. _No_ , I told myself. I let my mind drift back to the steady heartbeat against my chest. My mind was shut off. Counting one, two, three...


	15. xv. skin

Movement filtered through to my mind at some point, and I realized that Peeta was waking up. My hands clenched his shirt in front of me on his chest, but my legs were still wrapped around him but loosely. The same feeling of desperation that I had all through the night was coursing through me, but I didn't seem to have the energy to hold tightly. I was exhausted, physically, mentally, emotionally, and not being able to fall back asleep after my nightmare didn't help. The thought that it was a new day, of having to get up and go out there and work and see people, made me want to throw myself into sleep and nightmares. _Maybe Peeta isn't waking up,_ I told myself and closed my eyes. _Maybe I could just lay here and try and grasp at the warmth that Peeta is, and forget the blood and the fire that consumed my brain._ Fire. My nightmares always go back to fire. The humor wasn't lost to me over the fact that the Girl on Fire was haunted by flames.

The odds weren't in my favor that morning, and Peeta began to stir. I could feel his breath upon my hair, going from a steady pattern to a deep intake signaling him awake. I felt him tense – he did usually in the morning, realizing I was there – and then his arms around me tightened. _I should let him know I'm awake,_ I told myself. But I couldn't bring to myself to speak. I was so tired, and I wasn't sure if my mouth would work with me and let me speak. I sighed quietly, and burrowed my head more into his chest and the sheets of the bed.

A small chuckle came out of him, and his one hand stroked my back. "Good morning. I'm surprised you're still here and not running off to the town."

I shrugged, not moving from my spot. "Do you want breakfast?" A simple nod came from me, and Peeta started getting up and out of bed. He went downstairs to make breakfast and soon enough there were delicious smells all around me. _Get up,_ I told myself. My head felt heavy, my body as well. _Get up, and get breakfast._ Even just this felt like a chore. Slowly, I got myself out of bed and made my way downstairs to sit at the table. Everything felt so stifled today. Within me. Around me.

A cup of tea and plate of eggs were soon in front of me, and Peeta sat in the chair opposite of me. I stared at my food a bit, and although I felt hunger I felt a bit disconnected from it. I had to just accept that this wasn't a good morning for me. I drank some tea, and then went to eat some eggs, but I couldn't taste anything. Soon enough Peeta was done and cleaning up his dishes and he realized that I barely touched my food. He was talking all throughout breakfast too, me just giving a slight nod or shrug as an acknowledgement of his words.

"Katniss? Was the food not okay? I can make you something else."

I looked up at him and he looked worried. I should have felt bad but I just couldn't wrap my head around anything. I had a headache but the throbbing of it felt dulled and far away. _He asked you a question. Speak,_ I told myself. "It's great Peeta," my words were clipped and forced. What was wrong with me? "I just wasn't so hungry, but I think I am now."

He smiled at me. "Alright. I'm going to go deliver bread. Are you going into the town now? We can go in together. Or..." He looked confused, not really knowing what to do. I didn't either. It was only a couple of days but Peeta and I both were told of the necessity of a routine and we were striving to get one with whatever new was with us. I was throwing everything off.

"I'll go in later."

He nodded, said goodbye with a squeeze of my shoulder, and then I was left to sit alone in his house with my now room temperature eggs and tea.

Without Peeta around for me to try force myself to speak or react, I felt as if I just sunk into the chair. _I should just clean up my place, and then go to my house,_ I told myself over and over again to do that exact thing, but I couldn't. I felt as if I couldn't move and I was just so ridiculously tired. It wasn't the kind of tired that came from not sleeping (although that definitely had a part in it), but rather was a tiredness I felt deep down inside. I wanted to crawl up the stairs back to the bed, or no, this wasn't my house, I wanted to go to my house in my own bed. But I felt so overwhelmed by such an easy task. I told myself I'd not be going into town then, if the thought of getting into a bed seemed to be too much. Everything was tired. Everything hurt. And soon enough I was staring at my tea mug trying to force myself to not see visions from my nightmare last night.

My mind took over. Things flashed in front of me as if projected. It took all of my willpower to try and force them out. Still, they made their way through and I tried to block it out but I couldn't. It's been a while since I felt this bad. I didn't think it'd be completely gone, not ever, but it was a lot. Too much. I tried to shut my brain down.

I must've fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew I was waking up. I was in a bed, and it seemed to be sometime during the night. I tried to think back to the day, but I couldn't remember a thing since sitting down for breakfast. The smell of bread wafted through, and I looked around to realize that I was in fact in Peeta's bed. Except alone. I got up and went downstairs, thinking that he must've been baking.

I found him in the kitchen. His back was to me, he stood in the kitchen against the counter just staring at his oven as his bread was baking. He didn't realize I was there and I walked closer to him. "Peeta?" I called out.

He looked over at me, surprise, relief and concern etched all over his face. "Katniss," he breathed, and then I was in his arms pressed against his chest. I didn't realize until he hugged me that I was a bit cold, and I wrapped my arms around him as well. We stayed like that for a while. He stepped back, hands still on my shoulders, and looked at me. Concern was still on his face, and he seemed to be searching for something within me. "Are you alright? Katniss I was so worried."

I scrunched my face off, trying to think. "What time is it? I can't remember the day at all..."

"It's about three in the morning. You... you don't remember the day?" He asked.

I shook my head.

He sighed. "I'll make you some tea." His voice was quiet, and soon enough the two of us had tea and we sat down at the table. His eyebrows were still down, as if stuck in a permanent place, his face stuck to always look so concerned. "Katniss. When I came home earlier today. After delivering bread and visiting Haymitch you... You were still at the kitchen table. Sitting there, staring. Your plate still not touched, your tea cold." I looked away from him, embarrassed. One of those days then. "I tried talking to you and everything but you wouldn't talk. You couldn't even acknowledge me. So I just, I brought you into my room, to lay in my bed." His hand was then at the back of his head, scratching. "I stayed with you for a good remainder of the day, just drawing. A bit later on I started baking to try and clear my mind, checking up on you every now and then. You weren't sleeping, your eyes were open but everything was just... shut off." His hand dropped and he looked down. His voice was a whisper then. "It scared me Katniss. I thought I lost you."

I looked away a bit, not being able to look at Peeta at that moment. "I guess you did...for a day at least." I turned to him, and tried a smile. "But I'm back."

He returned the smile, although he still seemed concerned. "You're back."

"Just like you come back from your flashbacks. So I guess it's kind of similar. We can't escape it, escape what we've been through, but we can come back to each other, and we will."

I blushed after I said that, realizing how I said we'd come back to each other rather than just that we'd come back. But that's how it really was though, wasn't it? Peeta gave me a reason to come back. Before, when we were too lost within ourselves (or maybe I was just lost, and he was giving me room to breathe), I just would sit in bad days for weeks. The bad days wouldn't leave. But Peeta made me want to fight it. And not only want to fight it, but I did, and I am. I don't know how bad his flashbacks were before we've become closer since our return, but I do know that I'm trying my damnedest to help him. And I think I am. And helping him is helping me, and it's this cycle of, well, I don't know what. I'd say it's recovery but it feels more than that, it just feels like our life.

Peeta put his hand on top of mine and squeezed. It looked like he was about to say something, when the timer went off and he had to get up and take whatever he was baking out. "You haven't eaten all day. I know it's three, but care for a cheese bun?"

I laughed and nodded, grateful for one of the delicious cheese buns. He took one for himself and sat across from me. I took a bite which brought a smile immediately to my face. "What were you going to do, Peeta? Try and use the smell of cheese buns to coax me out of my bad spell?"

He laughed an easy going laugh. It felt good to be able to joke about it all, and I was happy to see the worry lines were gone from his face. "I was ready to start sprinkling crumbs into your mouth until you snapped out of it."

We finished up our cheese buns, and I helped him clean the kitchen from his baking. When we were finished, I looked down, and realized there was white all over from when he hugged me before "Peeta, I have flour all over myself."

We went upstairs. "They're my clothes anyway. Just take some new ones."

Eventually I'd wear my own clothes again. Tomorrow.

And I did. I fell asleep easily that night, Peeta's arms around me (a bit more tightly, as if to hope to keep the nightmares away). Dreams came and went, some were nightmares, but none were too harmful. I woke before the sun, making my way out of Peeta's embrace as he pulled me back to kiss my forehead. I laughed, feeling better than the day before already, and went to my house to take a shower and make my way to the town.

I apologized when I got to the workspot, but they said it was fine. I was volunteering my work, even helping with the funds (most of it I was paying for, truly), and I never officially was a worker. I just started showing up. I went to work right away, knowing that soon I'd have to show Peeta how far along it was. I was nervous though. It was in the same spot as the old bakery, his family's bakery, although it was already looking different. I found myself at times without realizing it staring at the apple tree. It was just a stump now, but I didn't let them remove it. I told them it could be a stool or something, for people to sit, but really, I just needed something tangible there from that night.

Walls were going up, the roof as well, but still it was just the inner-workings. They told me that Peeta would have to come around soon and make the decisions on what kind of colors and design would be wanted. I didn't want this to set off another couple of days of flashbacks, or any. I didn't want him to be frustrated that I was working on it without telling him, although it was for him. I wasn't nervous about him wanting it though, since he was taking the time to still bake bread for tons of people and even going out of his way to deliver it. If I tried hard enough, I could see him baking in a nice place, ovens full, trying to teach me how to make a certain bread with raisins.

I blushed and tried to work harder. Peeta had tried to tell me he'd teach me to bake already, but I still couldn't help but feel embarrassed that I allowed my brain to think of that.

I made my way to Greasy Sae's for lunch, and she smiled at me. "I missed you yesterday, dear."

I nodded as I sat. "It was one of my hard days."

She understood and didn't question it further as she laid a stew in front of me. I ate as Greasy Sae got a conversation out of me, until someone came into the room from the back. I turned, and saw Jear standing in the doorway, looking at me but also looking cautious. In her hair were Prim's ribbons, in her hand a doll of hers. I looked at her and waited to see where my mind went at seeing it, but I felt a rush of warmth at the sight. Prim, her memory still ached and hurt within me, but seeing someone else with her things, using them instead of them just sitting there for me to cry into, was good. "Jear, you look pretty today," I told her with a smile. Her face broke into a huge smile and she came over to sit next to me, finding my answer to her a good enough reason to no longer feel cautious.

Routines. Another one to fall into, and it felt nice. Wake up, work in town, eat at Greasy Sae's, work some more, come home to dinner with Peeta, go to bed. There were surprises that mixed in as well – Haymitch coming over for dinner, Jear being around, coming to his house to find Peeta painting and just wasting a night watching – but they were welcomed. I found it easier to smile at times, and even was able to laugh it off when I came around to find a goose in my yard that started to chase me. Haymitch was able to get it away, eventually getting it into a pen that he made for them.

"Why do you even have these geese Haymitch?" I asked scowling. Although Haymitch seemed rather indifferent to them (which was more than I could say for his feelings for me), they seemed just a nuisance.

"They listen to me, unlike some neighbors," he looked at me pointedly.

I waved him off and invited him for dinner.

I was working again at the bakery, trying to think in my head when I'd tell Peeta. It'd have to be soon. The other workers were becoming more persistent about it. Maybe at dinner I'd approach the subject. I felt nervous, not only about if he'd have a flashback anymore, but also because I wanted him to know that I was doing this for him. I enjoyed the work, it took my mind off of things without me having to kill (although I still did hunt, it still brought peace to my mind, but it was good to construct rather than destroy), but really I was doing this in hopes that it would mean something to him. That he'd understand. I shook my mind from the thoughts, and hammered again at the nail I was working on. I'd deal with these thoughts tonight, when I'd finally have to tell him. I'd deal with it then.

There seemed to be a change amongst the workers, and although I never noted of what they spoke of, I caught on to the fact that they were all sending greetings and thanks to someone. I stopped my hammering and walked over to them to see why they stopped.

When I walked out, I saw why. Peeta was there, handing them several loaves of bread but his eyes were trained on me. I started to panic. This wasn't supposed to be how he found out. His entire face was a blank slate, and I felt myself panic even more. I knew how to read Peeta and his face, understand what he was going through. But I couldn't then. There wasn't a malice, so I didn't think he was going to have a flashback (at least here), but he wasn't smiling either. What do I say? I haven't done anything wrong, but I felt wrong looking at him, him just seeing what was going on finally. After a bit he turned and walked off without another word, and all I wanted to do was run after him. I had more work to do though, so I tried to go back to work.

"You're off for the rest of the day. Go talk to him," Thom told me, his hand on my shoulder.

I nodded quickly and headed out, jogging back to his home where it seemed he was going towards. I really hoped that he wasn't having a flashback. The last time he saw it he did. The last time...no, the last time it was just ashes. Ashes and death. I wasn't here the first couple of days, but who knows? Maybe even his family's bodies were still stuck in there. My stomach lurched and I started running to the house. _Don't have a flashback because of this. Because of me. I just wanted to help._

The door was unlocked when I got there. I paused, trying to catch my breath and then went inside. "Peeta?" I called out to the silent home. I listened for a bit to see if I could hear anything, when the faint sounds of footsteps from overhead came around. "Peeta," I said again, but it was under my breath, as if I was saying it to myself rather than calling out for him again.

I climbed up the stairs and listened again, making my way to push open the door to his room. He was standing in front of the window, looking out. The sun was setting, burning oranges, pinks, and purples throughout the room, him silhouetted amongst it all. For a second I just stood there still and silent, taking everything in. It was absolutely breathtaking, the colors, the stark contrast of his body in shadow against it all, framed by the window. I wished I was as good with paints as he was for the moment, wish I could capture this moment on a different surface so more people other than just me, just right now could appreciate it. I tried to shake my head clear, and took a step forward. "Peeta," I said again. I felt foolish. Was his name the only thing I could say? I just didn't know what to say. I didn't know how he was feeling. I didn't know absolutely anything.

I took another step towards him. Another, until I was right behind him. "Peeta I'm sorry I," I stopped, not knowing what to say. What was I sorry for? For not telling him? It wasn't like I was trying to surprise him, but I was keeping it from him a bit afraid of how he would take it. How he was taking it now.

"Katniss," He said, and turned around to face me. His face was blank still, and he reached out for me. I wasn't afraid, I didn't think he was going to hurt me. His face was blank, there was no show of the anger of tracker jacker within him. But I was confused. What was going on inside his head? He ended up with his hand on my cheek, and I closed my eyes involuntarily, of skin on skin. "Is that what you've been doing in town?"

"Yes. I've been working on the new bakery. After you had an episode by seeing the rubble...Peeta I couldn't let that happen again. So I started helping with the work. And they need you to go and help with picking out the colors, they need to figure it out soon. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner Peeta, I didn't know how–" I was rambling, but was stopped by the feeling of his lips on my own. I was surprised, but soon found myself responding. We've kissed a couple of times. If he had an episode, I'd kiss his forehead or cheek or even his lips to help him out. He'd at times going to bed or waking up would kiss my head or neck. Only the two that I started really felt like something more, felt like something besides the feeling of lips upon the other. He started this kiss, this press of lips upon another, and it felt like something more.

I _wanted_ something more. I've felt it before, but only with Peeta. And... would the feeling only be with Peeta? Everything seemed to come down to him. I fought the bleak nothingness just so that he wouldn't worry. I felt like a human because of him. And now, as his lips were upon mine, as my arms went around his neck, wound through his hair, held his arms, I don't know anyone else who could make me feel like this. Make me feel alive after everything I lost. He made me be able to see past scars, see truly just my skin and bones. And he made me be able to see past that too. What I am, it's not the scars, but the fact that the scars are healing. I gripped him harder, pulled him closer, kissed him more. I fought him because he was who the Capitol wanted for me, but after this all, wasn't even more of a rebellion to fully admit it all? 

_Admit what?_ I asked myself. _Admit what?_ Somewhere I knew, I always knew, maybe. I don't know. It was confusing and almost felt too much, but I didn't let myself think of that. I couldn't. I could only think of this boy, Peeta, there right with me and kissing me. His tongue touched my own, and I wasn't afraid. I didn't flinch. I wanted it, and more.

He kissed me. I kissed him. I tried to pull Peeta closer. And it was like the time before, when I lost my entire day. I lost track of time. Was time even a thing really anymore? I was only sure of Peeta and myself. I could not even remember the last time I was sure of myself. Before the war? Before the games, the berries? No, even then, I wasn't sure of myself. I was just sure of my need to survive, as well as my families. Before my father died, maybe, but I was too young to really understand who I really was.

It was a while until our lips weren't on one another. Our foreheads pressed against one another, and my eyes were still closed. I was almost afraid to look into his eyes, to lose myself in them. Because I knew that was where it'd head, if I opened my eyes. I breathed in, and all I could breathe in was him. It was there, it always was, wasn't it?

"So do I not have to apologize?" My voice was a whisper, and rough. But not from sleep, or anything that I usually would attribute it to. I let myself let it know. It was because of Peeta.

"No... Katniss it's." And Peeta was left speechless. That was usually my role. Words unable to form, and I could feel his palms, on my hips, sweaty.

"Do you remember," I started. suddenly feeling a need to talk, to use words, in a way that he always found so easy. These words were strong in me, built upon from the years we had fought together side by side. "Do you remember when I said it was easier before?" It was back to the day of my birthday again, when he first held me after so long. "You asked me if it was easier then, and I said it was. Even with all the lies and the image and the Capitol, and I said it was easier." My grip on his arms tightened, my forehead against his harder. He breathed in, hard, and I exhaled. "It was easier. Because it was easier to believe, and lie. For me. It was an act. I hated the cameras, but I could use them as an excuse each time I found myself reaching for your hand without realizing doing so."

He was silent, both of us were, and I tried to process my own words and thoughts. "There's so many sides of you," he said with a laugh.

A cut to me, and it hurt a bit after everything I said. "Yeah, and all that's left is a shitty one."

"I've loved every version of you, Katniss," He told me, his voice hushed as well as his hand found its way to play with my hair. "The five year old that was eager to have her voice heard was the first I found. The eleven year old that wished to be silent. The protector, the savior. The older sister that sacrificed everything for her little sister. The tribute. The victor. The mockingjay. Even when they programmed me to hate you, my love was always still there, somewhere. It was what got me through the venom." His hands were on my cheeks, pressing hard in not a way that meant venom but in a way that completely was Peeta. "You are you, in all of the different moments, and in all of the different ways. And I have loved every one of them."

I have changed. Yes. Hasn't he changed too? He was the boy with the bread, always ingrained in my mind. But he was so much more now. Even past the venom that he had in his blood, I knew he was more. He _meant_ more. And now we were alone, really alone. No cameras, no tributes trying to kill us, no Effie trying to keep us on schedule, no anything. But us. Us, the setting sun, and the rising moon.

"I love you, Katniss. I always will. And you say you don't deserve me, but I don't give a damn about who deserves what. I love you, Katniss. I always have."

It wasn't about who deserved what. It wasn't about who I could survive without or with. I could survive just fine. But to _live_ , to live...  
No, it wasn't about what I deserved. I didn't deserve much, after everything. Or maybe I deserved it all. But I wanted Peeta. And Peeta, somehow, after it all, wanted me still a well.

"You got a head start," I said, my lips brushing his. "Always have. You've always loved me." I took a deep breath. _Feel_ , I told myself. Feel, don't put everything upon your actions. Feel, and put words to what it is that is within you. "I have to catch up, or love you ten-fold." I pressed my lips on him again, hard. And I separated with a deep breath, and finally let myself truly say the words. "I love you too."

And then the games really began.


End file.
